#except he wishes to abolish the system but he does understand that a new one has to take its place

[kacievvbbbb]

I feel like the main reason this evil shanks theory is so prevalent (besides the private meeting the the gorsei which up even I can’t explain) is that his general cheeriness and lackadaisical disposition is more of a presented front, a mask to be slipped on and off at will which would be fine if he weren’t often put in the same boat as Roger and Luffy two people ( for as much as we know about roger) who have no masks at all.

Don’t get me wrong I’m pretty sure that Shanks is a naturally happy, good natured dude but he’s also the most politically minded pirate we have seen on the show (and some of these pirates were actual politicians) like I’m pretty sure Roger is more mature and secretive than Luffy ( makes sense he’s older and has seen more of the world) but with both of them you never get the sense that their silliness is something they are putting on for the direct purpose of making themselves less of a threat. They both can get serious when the situation calls for it but that feels more of an extension of their already established personality more than a hidden personality.

While with shanks it’s undeniable that something changed within him and his goals the day Roger died I don’t know if Roger actually told him something or if he just wasn’t dealing with the abandonment well it was probably a mix of both honestly. But yeah Shanks comes off as a guy with his ear to the ground someone who has schemes on schemes on schemes. he’s someone playing in the long run, kind of like crocodile but not nefarious. And when compared with a straight forward head first always kinda guy like Luffy, like he often is, he can come off a little suspicious.

There’s something that’s a little fake about his cheer, something a little too performative about his optimism and foolishness. I think it’s a mix of; he’s housing a deep sadness, he’s more of a realist that an optimist and also dudes just a pacifist unlike like luffy who loves to brawl ( like luffy knows when it’s better not to fight but he also loves a good fight) and he would rather deescalate a situation than fight it out and sometimes the easiest way to do that is with an air of cluelessness and making yourself seem less of a threat which makes it so much more jarring but effective when he reveals just how big a threat he is. but I can see why people think it’s suspicious.

(Interestingly even when luffy tries to emulate this behavior like when he first encountered Bellamy at the pub his plan is to just not react which while in the same vain is very different than Shanks actively playing the drunken good natured take it on the chin role for the bandits Luffy was still essentially himself he just refused to react while Shanks played a role which made it more terrifying and effective when he stopped)

Also it doesn’t help that until recently he’s largely been missing from the narrative with just a man echoing or a whisper here or there of how powerful he is.

But I think we should remember that Shank’s goal is essentially world peace. and peace, a true lasting peace, is just a little more of a precarious balancing act, than utmost freedom. For freedom you have to destroy the old game, for peace you have to learn to play a new one, hopefully with a bit more kindness injected into the foundation.

[beauty-and-passion]

What Eurovision 2021 taught us

1. That a nice, enjoyable show was possible (even if 4 presenters are still too much)

Of course nothing can beat Love Love Peace Peace (even if Ja Ja Ding Dong does its best), but this year's intermissions were very enjoyable.

We expected something flashy and over the top because hey, The Netherlands. Sex, drugs, gays and all that jazz.

But instead Covid surprised us. And then The Netherlands surprised us even more, by making a very enjoyable show, despite the restrictions. My personal favourites were:

The water intermission of the first semi-final. I loved the mixed feelings, how water is both scary and respected, for being such a powerful, unstoppable force.

The rooftop concerts during the final. Social distancing? Sure, no problem, let's make the past winners sing on top of some roofs all over Rotterdam. That was pure genius, I loved it so much.

On the other hand, the presenters were basically all useless. We could've had just two of them instead of four. But hey, at least they weren't as cringy as the three scary ukranians from 2017 or the useless four ladies from Portugal. The true highlights of the show were the intermissions, the guests and especially the songs themselves and this is perfectly good for me.

________________________

2. That we can live in a world without boring ass ballads

I’ve never been so proud of the Eurovision public, especially during the second semifinal: that evening was PACKED with ballads. Boring ballad after boring ballad, with just a couple more funny songs in between.

The ballads were all left behind. Even the two Amen. And I love the irony we chose El Diablo and the finnish band for the final, but no Amen. No saints allowed, only the norwegian angel. As it always should be.

And so we had the best final I've seen since I started following Eurovision in 2014. Catchy songs, dance songs, upbeat songs. And power ballads. Yes, ballads can still have a place, but only if they're good.

Because yes, Switzerland and France were good. Very good. Just not as good as the ones the public wanted.

________________________

3. That we want Eurovision, not Englishvision

Every year, the same message blasts from all Europeans: send a song in your native language. This show is supposed to make other people from Europe (and the rest of the world) to know more about your own country, to enjoy its rhythm and to listen to something we don't usually hear. So why waste this huge opportunity, to bring a generic song in English?

Because the English song wins. Because we all understand English, so English has more chances.

Flash news: GUESS WHO WON THIS YEAR. No, it’s not the generic English song.

The public has been crystal clear, the final poll is even clearer: the top five includes an italian song, an ukraine song, two french songs and only one english song. We want different styles and rhythms, we want to listen to Europe.

So I want to give my full thank you to:

Albania: amazing song, great voice, wonderful language. Do it again.

Serbia: these ladies are fantastic, their song is great and they sang it in their language so I love them

Switzerland: thank you for leaving English to the side to give us some good french

Spain: the song wasn't as good as Universo, but it was in sexy spanish, so thank you for using it almost every year

Danemark: the song was terrible, but it was in your language and this alone deserves everything

France: I know we all make fun of you for being France, but your language is perfect for songs, so thank you for always using it

Ukraine: take note, Ukraine, because Europe is madly in love with your language and your rhythm

Italy: our language is beautiful, so thank you for delivering every year

While my biggest biases go to:

Greece: a generic pop song with no balkan rhythm and no greek either? An absolute shame, greek should always be used for songs.

Russia: russian language is very melodious and yes, we got something this year, but what about bringing a full russian song? We want it!

Germany: I may sound crazy, but I honestly think german language is good for songs. It's not like the mediterranean languages, but it still works. So please, do not be scared and show what you can do with it!

Scandinavian countries: why do you never want to bring your own language? Do it, don't be scared! Yes, Sweden, I'm talking with you: you still never tried to bring something in swedish, so do it.

________________________

4. That we don't want Americans to play with us

For reasons we still have to understand, Flo Rida was competing this year. And he was competing for San Marino, the smallest European country.

I'm pretty sure they took some time to explain to him what was going on, where he was, where San Marino is, wtf was happening, why there were sexy italians and ukranian witches and a norwegian angel and loads of beautiful women everywhere.

And I loved how we all send memes about this, about ahahah why is Flo Rida here, what if San Marino wins where would they host Eurovision, all while enjoying an actual catchy song.

And then, in the end, Flo Rida basically disappeared. Who remembers Flo Rida, when we got Ukraine, Italy, Finland, Iceland, and the UK? And Germany being wholesome? And the love story between Norway and Azerbaijan? We collectively forgot about him and I think it's very sexy from Europe to just say "nope" and push America away, even if for just one week.

And this isn't the first time: we basically showed Madonna in a corner in 2019, thanks to Mans, Eleni, Verka and Conchita. Once again, Europeans knows what they want: we don't want Americans. Australia can because they're like that little brother we took under our wing for no reason and now it's part of us. But not Americans.

The rest of the year is all yours, but one week is ours.

________________________

5. That we can lose like bosses

This year, the voting results have been absolutely insane and FOUR COUNTRIES got zero points from the public, while the UK got both zero points from the public AND the jury.

Don't get me wrong, the song was bad. And yes, Brexit played a role in this. And yes, hating England is Europe’s favourite sport.

But can we please all take a moment and appreciate how James Newman reacted? The public gave him a round of applause and he celebrated this achievement like a boss.

And he had all the reasons! He achieved something incredible, he unlocked something that this new voting system was supposed to never lead to. But he did it. So hats off to you, my boy: My Last Breath was better.

Germany is also used to the bottom of the chart, but this year I really thought Jendrik could have a chance to achieve a higher position. The song was funny, carefree, lively, the hand costume was the kind of trash we need and the message was nice as well. But he still got 3 points.

Despite that, Jendrik celebrated like a maniac and seeing his this happy made me happy as well. I really wish him the best.

________________________

6. That FUCK YOU JURY

Again, same message every year: the jury vote should be eliminated. It's a fucking farce and their votes have nothing to do with what the public want.

The jury focuses on the voices, except when they don't, and clearly giving points to your neighbours is because you like the song, not because they're your neighbours.

I usually make fun of Greece and Cyprus showing eternal love to each other, by giving 12 points to each other every year, but this time, it sounded even more stupid than usual. It really looked like a farce. Why should we see this farce? Why can't we just choose what the public wants? So at least we would blame ourselves for our shitty musical tastes.

Even if I'm pretty sure we all have great musical tastes. Let's not forget that in 2019 the public's winner was Norway, with a song that mixed english, a catchy rhythm and an amazing part in yoik language. Arcade is good as well, but we cannot deny the norwegian entry was a lot more interesting.

And this year, the public's taste was flawless:

Look at this beauty: italian glam rock, ukranian techno folk, french powerful ballad, finnish hard rock and whatever that thing was with Iceland.

There's variety, there's everything for everyone. And there are native languages. Italian, Ukranian, and French on top three, followed by English.

Moral of the story: the public is great and the jury should be abolished forever.

________________________

7. That Ukranian technofolk is all we needed in our lives

I didn’t see enough love for Go_A, so as italian, I think it's my sworn duty to give my appreciation to them and their amazing entry, because this band is awesome and Shum is currently on top of the Spotify top 50 - as it should be, because everyone should listen to it and join this slavic rave party.

I already liked their entry for 2020, Solovey. But I also liked My Last Breath from the UK and Universo from Spain. And this year they brought two of the worst songs. So I was very wary of Go_A.

But Shum is an absolute blast. Katerina Pavlenko's voice is unique and the song is even more, because based on ukranian folklore and traditional dances to summon the spirit of spring. They managed to teach something to all Europe in a three minute song and I think that’s incredibly sexy of them.

And so, I searched for other songs and OMG, I don’t know how it’s possible, but they are all great. Rano-Ranenko, Zhalmenina, Tanula, they all are perfect and I’m in love with this band.

And if all of this is not enough, THEY DID A COVER OF DANCING LASHA TUMBAI. The most iconic Eurovision song, sang by our god Verka. And this is the coolest, most badass cover ever in the whole universe. Please listen to it HERE everyone needs to hear this.

So thank you, Ukraine, for giving us Go_A. We all had a small empty place in our hearts and this place has ben perfectly filled by them.

And yif you think you don’t need ukranian technofolk, is only because you still haven’t listened to it. Please listen and enjoy Shum. You’re welcome.

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8. That rock and roll never dies (and Italy’s well deserved victory)

The last time Italy won was in 19-fucking-90. 31 years ago. I was just born.

And now, they finally won again. And what a song! Despite being italian, I've never listened to Maneskin before, but oh damn, this song is good. Not all their songs are, but this one is. And also Morirò da re.

Their show was perfect as well. This post is really eye-opening about how well they put on their show. The use of the stage, the movements, everything has been part of a great performance, even their clothes. Damiano's voice never faltered, despite having an entire continent watching him. They handled the stage like bosses, despite being only in their twenties. And they gave us some good fucking rock.

And so the public said a loud "FUCK YOU" to the jury and chose its winners. The sassy, sexy italians.

And yes, I know that there has been a lot of petty polemics because those youngsters are having drugs!1!! as if they were a bunch of idiots who used drugs on international TV, with their manager sitting next to them.

Of course it was a pointless accusation and honestly I don't care if some people are sore losers. The drug results were negative anyway, what a shocker.

What we should truly think about is how strong the Maneskin's bladders are, because they spent the whole evening of the final drinking the entire alcohol supply of the Eurovision and, at the end, they were still happy and cool. Hats off to you, you sexy people.

This man is just iconic, why did I miss him before.

Also, have some more Maneskin. You know, as a treat.

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9. That solidarity and wholesomeness are the biggest winners

It's just beautiful to see these nice people, from all over Europe, bonding, having fun, taking photos together and being friends.

The true winner of this, is probably Norway: Tix wanted to have a good time and he had a good time. The video of him vibing with Ukraine and Germany while listening Hard Rock Hallelujah is the best (HERE). His love story with Efendi from Azerbaijan is even better (please, check the video on his youtube channel, it's hilarious). I don't like his song, but he's a great guy and deserves everything.

The italian and finnish rock relationship is also great. Maneskin and Dark Sides found each other, considering they were the only two rock bands in the competition, so mutual appreciation was inevitable.

But Damiano is also a man of culture and he appreciates Ukraine's entry. And Ukraine appreciates both Finland and Italy. Is this what world peace looks like? Because I love it.

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10. That Italians will be Europe's clowns again (and you're all allowed to make fun of us)

Beware, Europe: we Italians are messy and chaotic, our presenters don’t know a single word in English, we are homoerotic AND homophobic at the same time, our musical competitions are so fucking sloooow... let’s say next year’s Eurovision is going to be interesting.

And yes, you’re allowed to make fun of us. We don’t care, we won, so we deserve to be Europe’s clowns once again.

And I don’t know who the presenters will be (my bets are on everyone’s favourites: Fiorello, Amadeus and Malgioglio), I don’t know how we will ridicule ourselves once again, I don’t know where will we find the money to put on the show, I don’t know how ungodly long it will be... but I know that Mans Zelmerlow will be part of it. This man loves Eurovision just like all of us, so I can already see him packing his suitcase and planning his flight to Italy. Come to us, Mans, we will wait for you. We actually need an English presenter, so if you have nothing else to do...

[detonizing]

headcanon.

50 headcanon challenge prompted by @bnharpchub​ bc so many people were doing it on dash and my restraint is only so strong 

coming up with 50 new headcanons was so difficult jfc AWOEINAWE i cheated a bit and some of them mention hcs I already wrote about before, but I did my best to focus on a different part of it to give it a new spin so it’s technically new....ish. awoieNAWEIAWNE

he learned how to cook because his parents were always busy and he wasn’t going to just expect them to cook for him when he could just do it himself ( he learned a whole LOT of things because he realized he could just do it himself )

he doesn’t usually keep things for sentiment reasons. there ARE a few exceptions, but for the most part if it’s important enough to remember he’ll just simply remember it 

he likes the view from up high. mountain climbing really made him aware of that, and it was a part of the reason why he wanted to learn how to fly ( that, and just the fact of it being practical, using his quirk to enhance movement ) 

sometimes puts on a clear coat of nail strengthening polish during weeks of particular harsh training. he would put on coloured polish too, but they often get ruined very quickly because of how much he uses his hands and so he doesn’t see the point to do it often 

his sweat isn’t actually toxic ( mostly bc I do NOT want to deal with all the problems having toxic sweat would cause, but there is more to it that I’ll write in depth of another day when I’m less lazy ) 

His volume is one of the few ways he feels like he can be heard. His mother is also a very loud person, and growing up he would be stuck in situations where if he doesn’t yell LOUDER, he won’t be heard. If he is WILLINGLY quiet around you, that is a sign of trust, a sign that he’s comfortable enough to not feel the need to be loud. 

he cannot stand his mouth being covered, nor does he take well to being told to keep quiet. He GETS that not many people appreciate his loudness. He KNOWS there is always time and place. But being loud is a defensive mechanism, and it being taken away against his will just messes with him a lot. 

speaking of, a large part of why he got the ‘i dont give a fuck about anyone else’ attitude is because no one would really care about him. It wasn’t just because he had a big head. He was acutely aware that people around him would praise him and rise him up, but never actually listen to him or cared what he wants. Why should he care about other people if no one gave a fuck about him? ( he knows better now )

he’s cautious about giving villains second chances. it’s not like he’s against giving villains a chance at redemption ( he knows he’d be a fucking hypocrite if he was ) but he also is realistic, and knows that some people are just shitheads and will refuse to change no matter what. knows that some people will take advantage of people with bleeding hearts ( cOUGHS like dEKU’s COUGHS ) and so he’s just. very wary and distrusting. he’ll give you a chance, but he’s going to watch you during it. 

if the ranking system of heroes gets abolished, it won’t really affect Katsuki’s goals. from the start when he says ‘number one hero’ what he cares most about is being number one by HIS standards. ofc he was planning to get ranked number one too, but if such a system falls apart, he’d just make sure he becomes the Best till no one can argue against it either way 

katsuki has always used his quirk often. he hates rules regulating quirk use because it’s so stupid to him. how the hell was he going to become number one if he didn’t know how to use his own damn quirk? ofc he still tried to abide by the law well enough, in public refraining for the most part ( but his middle school very obviously was super lacking in discipline so he just didn’t bother hiding his usage of quirk there )

his quirk acts up when he has high emotion — but MOST of the time, that is less him losing control and more of a conscious decision on his part. resisting the urge to explode when his body is aching to is dangerous, so it’s better to let loose small, controlled, explosions when the time comes. He works hard to keep control of his quirk, he knows when it’s best to just let explosions loose and when he can hold it in

even without explosions he has a habit of his fingers twisting or fist clenching when he’s high strung. restricting his hands in any way, esp during these times, are an absolute no for him. he WILL react violently if you take away his only method of physically defending himself. 

the reason why he NEEDS to be able to defend himself at all times comes from his lack of trust. He doesn’t WANT to rely on other people, because they could mess up so it’s just better to do it himself. so if people try and stop him from doing it himself.... just nope. 

he’s so so so SO bad at accepting compliments. he’s used to empty meaningless compliments, praise for things he didn’t even earn, so getting actual compliments that are WORTH something. it’s. a lot. he doesn’t know how to properly handle it yet so his first reaction is to reject it somehow ( either by telling the person they are being an idiot, or finding fault in the compliment itself, or something along those lines ) 

he has a base respect for pro heroes in general, because he understands that they have experience he is obviously lacking being a student. but he won’t be blinded by their status. if they fuck up, they fuck up and no ‘hero’ status will keep him from recognizing that 

he doesn’t actually hate quirkless people. he never really has. he had a problem with DEKU, but not exactly quirkless people in general. he started calling Izuku as “Deku” before he knew that he would never get a quirk. He called him ‘deku’ because izuku would fail at bouncing a ball or skipping stones and such ( back then, almost ALL people were ‘useless’ to him, not just quirkless people aoweinaoweianwe ) 

he as sharp teeth. not enough to be called fangs or anything, but they are definitely sharper than average ( he’s a little gremlin so I must give him sharp teeth ) 

he’s still struggling to ask for help. he can easily admit that he needs backup when it comes to hero works — knows that teamwork is essential at times and saving and BEING saved in turn is how being a hero is. BUT for PERSONAL things? Outside of being a hero? As a person??? He doesn’t know HOW to ask for help with that. 

He’s ALWAYS been super independent. so people just. expect him to be fine on his own. HE himself expected to be fine on his own. But by the time he realized wait no, I’m not fine. People stopped trying to check up on him. ( until U.A., but then old habits die hard. but he’s learning ) 

he tends to shower at night more than in the mornings, because he often works out not too long before bed. he also just takes more than one shower a day if needed ofc he takes hygiene seriously

he HATES when he can’t get a full night’s sleep. And sadly ever since getting kidnapped it’s been happening more and more often. he’s unused to functioning without a full eight or nine hours, so he gets cranky all day and feels fucking awful. He used to hate naps, felt like a waste of his day, but they’ve become a bit of a necessity with how shit his sleeping pattern has become. ( plus jordyn’s shoto has shown him the wonders of napping aowienawe ) 

he doesn’t take long to get ready in the morning. even if he needs to dress differently for an occasion or anything, he doesn’t spend long trying to decide what to wear

his quirk isn’t affected by rain or water like people would expect, but it’s fucking COLD so he still hates getting wet

he’s really good at fighting even without his quirk. he absolutely has thought of situations where he couldn’t use his quirk to full capacity, and so he decided he needed to kick ass even without it

he’s really level-headed in battle!!! despite how he acts, he ALWAYS considers all options and acts on the best one. He just thinks really fast and acts the way he does so it SEEMS like he’s charging in without thinking ahead. That being said, he used to often underestimate his opponents so he’d sometimes make the wrong call. He’s getting MUCH better at not doing that lately tho

he doesn’t really celebrate his own birthday. he gets well wishes from his family, often they’d get a cake maybe, but he doesn’t really WANT or NEED presents, so he had his parents stop trying to gift him things years ago. His birthday is SUPER close to the beginning of the year, so it is often times overlooked by his peers too, but he doesn’t care

Katsuki is demisexual!! He can recognize when people are traditionally attractive, but he doesn’t really fucking care and isn’t attracted TO them. It’s only once they’ve become someone he actually CARES about could he then develop any feelings beyond platonic ones ( no love at first sight here )

he’d NEVER pick up smoking, and even when of age he’d very rarely drink. He wouldn’t want his health to deteriorate by stuff like that. And he wouldn’t want his ability to think be hindered by alcohol

he doesn’t like lying unless for good reason ( like hiding ofa ) but he doesn’t see lying by omission as the same. To him, that’s just him deciding it’s no one’s business and so there’s no need for him to admit to anything

people have tried to bully him as a kid. we’ve seen him chase off older kids in canon before. It wasn’t just a one time thing. It was pretty constant, actually. Other kids, usually those older than him, would hear about him and his attitude and try and ‘put him in his place’ It’s not like he was very popular as a kid, it’s just that Katsuki always WON any fights so no one could actually do anything to him

his nicknames, for the most part, aren’t actually meant to be insulting. Besides like Deku, and when he called Todoroki “holding back bastard”, the rest are just,,, descriptions in his mind aowienAWE ThEY ARE RUDE AF but he doesn’t actually seek out the rudest name he can think of to call people. It’s just whatever comes to mind first

he doesn’t actually mind when people call him out on his shit anymore. he’d in fact admit that they have guts to do so. If they try and call him out on BULLSHIT though, then he’d get angry bc they are just wasting his goddamn time. 

he KNOWS when his classmates are purposefully manipulating him to doing something by phrasing it as a challenge. It’s just he doesn’t give a shit, he’ll rise to the challenge anyways and prove them all WRONG. 

If he really doesn’t wanna do something, there’s absolutely nothing that could get him to do it 

his way of SHOWING that he cares is through actions and gifts. Doing things for people ( studying, cooking, etc ) that he cares about comes naturally to him

On the contrary, he struggles to process it when people try and show that they care the same way. He doesn’t like getting gifts, and he rather do the things he needs to himself??? The easiest way he can understand people showing that they care is through quality time. If you are willing to spend time with him, seek him out? He can get that means you WANT to. ( if this is proven wrong it’d shake his entire acceptance in that person. he’d struggle to believe that they care for him at all in any way after ) 

once you broke his trust, it’s impossible to gain it back. he DOESNT trust easily. he takes so many careful measures to prevent himself from trusting the wrong person. if he gave you his trust you better fucking treasure it, because it’s only given out once. That being said, there are different levels of trust that katsuki gives out — as seen on his relationship page. Level two trust is when it starts getting serious. If you have that, that’s when if broken it’s unfixable. Level one trust is a toss up if broken, very dependent on situation

soft smiles are hard to come by from katsuki! We’ve all seen his confident grins in the face of danger all the time — he smiles a lot during challenges and battle!! But soft ones? Full of fondness and love? They are pretty rare. And even when they DO happen, often it’s only when no one can see

His EYES are actually what turns soft first!! You have a better chance catching his eyes and eyebrows turn a bit less aggressive, but again they aren’t exactly common per say. He doesn’t like showing such expression unless he feels like attention is off him. ( he just. isn’t USED to expressing himself this way. so he doesn’t really like when people draw attention to when he does. because it makes him feel like he did something wrong, in a way )

it’s actually easy to make katsuki flustered and embarrassed. he’S not uSED to it so he’s weak let him live aowieNAWE his ears are the first to turn red!!! but if you really get him embarrassed he does go completely red sorry kats

he does all of his homework well in advance. he hates leaving ANYTHING to the last minute, really

he’s done modeling work as a kid. sometimes he still does, but very rarely. He doesn’t exactly hate doing it, but he just isn’t the least bit interested so he rather spend his time doing something else. When he does do it, you bet he takes it 100% seriously.

he won’t argue if someone calls him a shit person. he knows that he is, and he refuses to deny that. what DOES piss him off though is when people solely focus on how shit of a person he is to the extend of disregarding the perfect results he gives. He’s a shit person, but he’s still the BEST and fuck anyone who says otherwise.

he also knows that he is changing, because it’s a conscious effort on his part TO change. But that’s also the thing. He’s working hard to not be shitty ALL the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that at his core, he’s still not a NICE person. he’s acutely aware that the things he struggles so much with, comes so easy to other people. He wont let this STOP him , he’s never called it quits before just because something was difficult for him, but it still sucks. knowing just how much effort he’s putting into this when some people barely think about it at all

katsuki was well versed in medical knowledge even before U.A. Not because he was thinking about how heroes may need to give emergency care on the field, but just from his own injuries during self training. he needed to know how to treat them properly so it doesn’t cause him problems in the future 

katsuki runs hot, but he gets cold easily. Because he’s used to keeping himself running at high temperatures, his concept of cold is different than most other’s. Suddenly being in like sixty five degrees Fahrenheit feels COLD to him

intended use for furniture are only suggestions. That means yes, he WILL sit on top of desks and counters, stand on top of chairs, and put his feet on the bed while he lays on the floor if he so goddamn chooses. 

no matter how close with a person he is, he’ll eventually need time alone and his personal space left untouched. It takes a lot to get to the point where physical touch is something he’d allow, ( having both touch starvation and touch aversion in equal parts ) but even with people he is completely comfortable with, sometimes it still gets to be TOO mUCH and he needs to step back. he has bad days, too. where just a brush of contact would set him off and he can’t understand himself why it happens. all he knows is that he really hates those days.

it still stings, the knowledge that All Might never even considered him for a possible successor. he was RIGHT THERE when all might picked izuku, after all. and all might can say all he wants about how ‘he was already powerful, he wanted to give midoriya a fighting chance’ or whatever. he knows he was never a contender. it’s not that he WANTS ofa though. he is perfectly happy with his quirk. It’s not even that it’s deku who ended up getting it, he in retrospect is glad deku can fight him now. It’s just. in the end, he’s always always lacking something. it just fuels to his belief of never being good enough when it counts. because HE is NEVER anyone’s first choice to be the up and coming number one. He’s GOING to be. He’ll prove EVERYONE wrong. But, it sure would be nice. Someone else believing in him, too.

[obscurehistoricalinterests]

Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in “Carmilla” and “Dracula” (IV)

By Elizabeth Signorotti (1996)

Part I - Part II - Part III

Thesis: Carmilla is a story of female empowerment, and Dracula is a patriarchal response to it.

Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in “Carmilla” and “Dracula” (part IV)

Stoker’s familiarity with Le Fanu’s vampire tale is certain. Farson claims that Stoker was “absorbed in the vampirism in ‘Carmilla,’ published two years after he left Trinity” but more convincing evidence is found in the original first chapter of Dracula, which Stoker deleted when his publisher requested that he shorten the book to reduce printing costs. In this section, he alludes to “Carmilla.” At the opening of this chapter, Jonathan Harker loses his way as he sets out for Castle Dracula on Walpurgis Nacht, a night “when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked, when all evil things of earth and air and water held revel.” A shaft of moonlight reveals he is in an overgrown graveyard with a great, snowy-white marble tomb before him.

Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulchre to see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone in such a place. I walked around it, and read, over the Doric door, in German:

Countess Dolingen of Gratz

In Styria

Sought and Found Death 

1801

On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid marble - for the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone - was a great iron spike or stake. On going to the back, I saw, graven in great Russian letters: ‘The dead travel fast.’

The reference to Styria recalls the Austrian setting of “Carmilla” and invites comparison between the two vampire tales. Whereas “Carmilla” abolishes male rights over women, Dracula reasserts those rights. This is indeed the key distinction between Dracula and “Carmilla,” one that Stoker apparently had in mind from the opening -albeit deleted- chapter of this book.

Stoker’s overriding concern in Dracula is the threat of rampant female sexual desire. Senf rightly points out that this ancient, aristocratic vampire who prays on the wives and fiancees of England’s working class reveals, among other things, the “power that negative social values from the past often have over the present.” As Troy Boone further concludes, the novel suggests that “a new understanding of sexuality and decay is necessary for any attempt to attain social order and growth” and that “for all its apparent ‘reification’ of dominant political beliefs, [Stoker’s text] exposes the dangers of failing to challenge their authority.” Both Senf and Boone present valid arguments, but, like other readings in Dracula’s critical legacy, theirs fail to emphasize the degree to which Stoker responds to the threat of female sexuality in Dracula. In Stoker’s text Dracula - and Dracula’s sense of sexuality- actually dominates very few of the scenes, whereas the sexually-charged female vampires - those at Castle Dracula, Lucy and Mina- receive most of Stoker’s attention. 

For his first “experiment” in Dracula, Stoker presents the problem of Lucy’s sexual aggressiveness, a problem to which he ultimately provides a violent solution. Although Lucy’s sexuality does not become rabid until her vampiric possession, Stoker presents her from the beginning as exhibiting personality traits potentially dangerous in women. In a letter to Mina, Lucy asks, “why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her?” Her wishing for the right to have more than one sexual partner -a reality for males such as Stoker himself- makes her a threat to established gender roles. Stoker feels obliged to inform the reader that her wishes were unseemly when, in the same passage, she again asks Mina, “why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?” Lucy serves as Stoker’s paradigm of woman-gone-wrong and predictably suffers from it.

In his attempt to redress Carmilla’s defiant behavior, Stoker imbues Lucy with Carmillaesque qualities. Her sleepwalking, which indicates a propensity towards vampirism in Dracula, first occurs in her childhood, just as Carmilla first visits and “infects: Laura during her childhood. In both works, the tendency towards socially aberrant behavior arises in early childhood, but while Carmilla’s and Laura’s behavior remains unrestrained, Lucy’s is eventually checked. Stoker also suggests that Lucy has lesbian tendencies. In a letter to Mina she says, “I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don’t want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all.” Lucy’s wish to share her secrets while undressing suggests her desire to reveal “what is more properly concealed,” something she knows is “wrong.” The men in the text can control Lucy and Mina’s homosocial relationship as long as they both remain accessible; they cannot, however, control what Lucy presumably has in mind.

As if to temper her questionable behavior, Stoker denies Lucy her inheritance rights and places her firmly within the male-governed kinship system. Lucy’s mother, who controls the Westenra estate after her husband’s death, dies shortly before Lucy’s marriage to Arthur Holmwood. Mrs. Westenra, Dr. Seward tells us, “had for some time expected sudden death from her heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order... with the exception of a certain entailed property of Lucy’s father which now, in default of direct issue, went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood.” Separating Lucy from her inheritance fictionally and historically positions her in a “long tradition in which women do not inherit.” Even before Lucy’s wedding, Mrs. Westenra (whose role is the “corrected” equivalent of Carmilla’s subversive mother) ensures Lucy’s total dependence on her future husband. If her daughter had any wild ideas about being financially independent in marriage, she has permanently disabled her.  

Once Dracula kisses Lucy into sudden sexuality, she grows “voluptuous,” “savage,” “wanton,” and “diabolically sweet.” Dracula’s “authorizing kiss... triggers the release of the latent power and excites in [Lucy] a sexuality so mobile, so aggressive, that it thoroughly disrupts... [compartmentalized conceptions] of gender” (Craft 228). Dracula’s kiss enables women to become sexual penetrators. Using their sharp teeth to penetrate men, they reverse traditional gender roles and place men in the passive position customarily reserved for women. In “Carmilla” the penetration of female vampires - in effect, the female appropriation of the phallus - is seen as an act of empowerment; in Dracula, however, Lucy’s unmanageable sexual penetration is presented as inherently evil because it threatens fixed gender distinctions. In an attempt to cure Lucy of her reckless sexuality, Van Helsing and his crew of “brave men” perform massive blood transfusions on her. By having her drained blood replaced with a “brave man”s blood,” Lucy might survive. The act of transfusing blood, of penetrating Lucy’s body with the phallic needle and enabling the men to deposit their own fluids in her, conjures up images of gang rape. As Rubin stresses, “women [in some societies] are frequently kept in their place by gang rape when the ordinary mechanisms of masculine intimidation prove insufficient.” Ironically, Lucy’s wish to marry “as many [men] as want her” violently comes true. Each transfusion symbolizes a kind of ghastly marriage and prompts Van Helsing to fret that “this so sweet maid is a polyandrist.” Stoker gives Lucy what she wants and teaches her a lesson at the same time.

But the gang transfusions fail to cure Lucy’s sexual recalcitrance, prompting Van Helsing’s crew to attempt to mask her sexuality by surrounding her with pungent garlic flowers. While garlic plays a symbolic role in traditional vampire folklore, in Dracula its role is dual. More than just a traditional means of discouraging Dracula’s visits, the ability of garlic to disguise odors, especially body odors, suggests, as Alain Corbin argues in The Foul and the Fragrant, “a way of denying the sexual role of the sense of smell, or at least of shifting the field of olfactory stimulation and allusion.” Van Helsing and Dr. Seward saturate Lucy’s body and environs with garlic flowers not only to keep Dracula at bay but possibly to disguise the sexual odors her newly excited body exudes.

Lucy’s unresponsiveness to ordinary mechanisms of masculine intimidation while alive permits Van Helsing and company, after her death and resurrection as an Undead, to resort to the most violent means of correction available to them. Cora Kaplan argues that traditional fictional “punishment for female sexual transgressions... [is] the immediate loss of social status.” For Stoker, though, the traditional punishment is not severe enough to rectify Lucy’s transgressions. Instead, he employs vampire lore’s extreme phallic corrective: staking and beheading Lucy. In this scene, Stoker’s gang of brave, noble men carry candles dripping “sperm” (D 197) into Lucy’s tomb. Even more sexually alive in the coffin, Lucy’s “body shook and quivered and twisted in violent contortions.” But before she can perform any other sexually suggestive gyrations, Arthur, shining with “high duty” drove “deeper and deeper the mercy bearing stake” into her chest (D 216). This act of transfixation “cures: Lucy and returns her to the accepted role of sexually passive female. Arthur and his companions have repossessed the body, permanently fixing her in the “stabili[zed] distinctions of gender” (Craft 224) and the male system of alliance. Lucy’s sexuality is “corrected.”

Part V will be posted soon...

[crimethinc]

Fuck Abuse, Kill Power: Addressing the Root Causes of Sexual Harassment and Assault

The past year has seen a wave of revelations about powerful people—nearly all men—perpetrating sexual violence against those beneath them. The #MeToo moment has provided a platform for countless courageous survivors. Yet although some men have been made to face consequences for the harm they have done, we are far from being able to solve the problem of male sexual violence. Focusing on the wrongdoings of specific men tends to exceptionalize them, as if their actions took place in a vacuum. This is consistent with the mechanisms of a criminal justice system focused on individual guilt and a reformist politics premised on the idea that the existing government and market economy would serve us perfectly if only the right people were in power. But with the bad behavior of so many men coming to light, we have to consider the possibility that these are not exceptions at all—that these attacks are the inevitable, systemic result of this social order. Is there a way to treat the cause as well as the symptoms?

Trigger warning for descriptions of sexual violence.

Virtually all recent mainstream coverage has treated sexual harassment and assault as an issue distinct from capitalism and hierarchy. When writers admit that capitalism and hierarchy play some role, they imply that what is harmful about these systems can be fixed through reform. They exhort us to appeal to power to solve the problems power causes: we are to pressure corporations to fire their executives, to use the media to shame media moguls, to use democracy to punish politicians. In short, we are supposed to use the very structures through which our abusers hold power to take it away from them.

On the contrary, we can’t be effective against rampant sexual assault without confronting its root causes.

A tattoo by Charline Bataille inspired by Jenny Holzer.

A Very Brief History of Sexual Assault in the United States

Sexual assault and rape are woven into the very origins of the United States. The original colonists did not consider the indigenous inhabitants worthy of the same moral considerations as white Europeans. Sexual assault and rape were systematically employed as colonial tools. Michele de Cuneo, a nobleman and a shipmate of Columbus, described the following scene in a letter, apparently without shame or remorse:

While I was in the boat I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me, and with whom, having taken her to my cabin, she being naked according to their custom, I conceived desire to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that I wished I had never begun. But seeing that (to tell you the end of it all), I took a rope and thrashed her well, for which she raised such unheard of screams that you would not have believed your ears. Finally we came to an agreement in such a manner that I can tell you that she seemed to have been brought up in a school of harlots.

Slaves, too, were routinely sexually assaulted. This was an essential aspect of the system of slavery: in addition to domestic labor, enslaved women were forced to engage in sex and reproduction that served to add more slaves to their captor’s holdings.

Workers have also experienced egregious sexual harassment and assault for as long as there has been a workforce.

Throughout all this, women were never passive victims. Women have always fought against their abusers with ferocity, creativity, and diversity of tactics. For example, in the mid-1800s, a slave named Harriet Jacobs fought fiercely against her captor; after resisting his sexual advances, she hid in a crawlspace for seven years to avoid him. She eventually escaped to New York and obtained legal freedom. An early forerunner of the #MeToo movement, she wrote letters to the New York Tribune detailing her experiences and in 1860 published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, one of the first books to detail enslaved women’s experiences of sexual assault.

Starting in the early 1900s, women formed labor unions that fought for the rights of female workers, including the right not to be sexually harassed and assaulted. Black women’s struggles against workplace harassment led to the creation of the first laws against sexual discrimination and harassment. In 1993, Lorena Bobbitt cut off her abusive husband’s penis and threw it in a field after he raped her. A jury acquitted her. These are all legitimate forms of resistance.

“They passed round the bleeding stump, as if they had finally exterminated a wild animal that had been preying on each and every one of them, and saw it there inert and in their power. They bared their teeth, and spat on it.”

-A passage from Emile Zola’s 1885 novel Germinal in which a mob of starving women workers castrate the corpse of a shopkeeper who has been extorting them for sex in exchange for food.

Corporations Won’t Solve This

It was no secret that many of these men were abusers. Nothing is different now except that corporations have taken a bit more notice. Corporate media outlets have published women’s accounts; some corporations have fired rapists if what they have done is deemed egregious enough. Should we be grateful to corporations for firing serial sexual predators once enough accusations pile up that it becomes a problem for their brand?

These corporations are just plugging the oil leak that finally made the news. But who creates and maintains this pipeline? They do. Let’s not pat them on the back for solving a problem that they caused.

Most of these companies have known about these accusations for years without doing anything. Worse, they’ve allowed these men to rise up the ranks of power to the point that their serial abuse warrants national news attention. In other words, these corporations have facilitated these men’s behavior by giving them additional opportunities with which to harass, assault, and rape women. For every Harvey Weinstein whose actions are finally brought to light, there is another Harvey Weinstein who gets away with serial assault thanks to the assistance of the institution that gives him power.

Why do corporations have a vested interest in helping rapists succeed in business? While misogyny is partly to blame, we have to look at the bigger picture. Corporate success is determined by how much profit a business produces, not by whether it protects women from sexual assault. In capitalism, whether to oust an assaulter becomes a simple economic equation: how is his presence affecting the bottom line?

Take the case of Bill O’Reilly. Since 2002, Fox News and O’Reilly have paid out many millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment claims. During this time, O’Reilly continued to be a rising star at Fox, negotiating a $25 million a year contract as recently as January 2017. While media coverage and exposés finally forced Fox to fire O’Reilly, Fox knew he was an abuser for more than a decade and shelled out millions to silence women he abused. Fox’s behavior is not so mysterious when one learns that in 2015, O’Reilly’s show earned Fox more than $180 million in advertising.

This is not an anomaly; this is a standard utilitarian calculation that businesses make all the time. Imagine you’re O’Reilly’s conscientious supervisor. Having just discovered O’Reilly’s long history of harassing women, you go to your bosses and demand that they fire O’Reilly. Even if your bosses agree with your demand from a moral standpoint, how could they explain the loss of O’Reilly, the golden goose, to their shareholders? Capitalism is designed to maximize profit over everything else, including ethics and safety.

This system also makes it difficult to fight back against abusers. In a hyper-competitive market, a single setback can mean the end of your career, your healthcare, your ability to pay rent. The stakes are higher for women and trans people, especially those of color, who are far more likely to experience poverty than men. Those who have gained a footing in the economy may be understandably hesitant to risk losing it, and it’s no secret that those who resist abuse or call out their abusers often face adverse consequences for doing so.

Targets of sexual harassment face impossible choices: do I allow this abuse to continue or risk losing income I desperately need? Do I report this abuse and risk deportation? Do I leave this job without reporting this abuse? If I do, does that mean that others will be preyed upon after me?

Capitalism, the state, and other forms of hierarchy offer sexual predators many ways of doing harm to those who resist them. O’Reilly, Weinstein, Ailes, Farenthold (the list goes on and on and on) all routinely harmed or ended the careers of those who opposed them.

Fears about job security also affect those who are asked to witness or even abet abusers. Weinstein used his employees to make his victims feel a false sense of security before he assaulted them, often asking staffers to come to the beginning of nighttime meetings and then dismissing them so he could be alone with his victims. One former employee described a scene in a nighttime meeting in which Weinstein demanded she tell a model that Weinstein was a good boyfriend, and became enraged when she said she no longer wished to attend these “meetings.” It is easy to feel self-righteous anger at staffers who abetted Weinstein, but it is undeniable that Weinstein’s position of power enabled him to ruin people’s lives. While we deserve for others to be brave in standing up for us even against the most powerful foes, it is unrealistic to think we could put an end to sexual harassment and assault in a system in which people have to martyr themselves in order to protect each other.

Abolishing capitalism and all other systems that concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a few would not put a stop to sexual assault, but it would greatly reduce the coercive economic power that the rich and powerful wield over the rest of us. Without those structural imbalances in power, assaulters would not have the means to manipulate anyone into complicity and silence. This may sound utopian, but it is the only realistic solution if we’re serious about combatting sexual assault. No system that centralizes wealth and power can prevent that power from being used to coerce or harm people.

No, we really don’t.

The Criminal Justice System Won’t Solve This

The law is no friend to victims of sexual harassment and assault. Police officers across the United States have brought charges of false reporting against sexual assault survivors who went to them for help, only to later see these victim’s stories confirmed when their assaulters were identified and convicted. Sexual assault survivors who manage to convince the police not to arrest them for false reporting can find themselves jailed in order to compel their testimony in court.

ICE uses courts as a trap for undocumented people. Undocumented people cannot even enter a courthouse without risking arrest and deportation. In this way, the state systematically facilitates the sexual assault of those whose papers are not in order.

Even if the police don’t throw you in jail, only three to six percent of workplace harassment claims ever make it to trial. Some of these cases are settled, but many are dismissed due to the law’s high bar for what constitutes harassment (the harassment must qualify as “severe” or “pervasive”). In one typical example, a construction worker brought a case against a supervisor who talked about raping him multiple times. The worker’s case was dropped because the supervisor’s actions occurred over a ten-day period and therefore did not meet the standard of being “pervasive.”

The court system not only punishes those who attempt to utilize it—it also targets those who try to defend themselves. In the New Jersey 4 case, a group of black women defended themselves against a catcaller who threatened and attacked them. They were prosecuted and four were sentenced to between 3.5 and 11 years in Rikers.

The criminal justice system exacerbates all the problems we have already seen in the corporate sector. While corporations implicitly hold people hostage in the context of the capitalist economy, the criminal justice system explicitly holds people hostage via the coercive apparatus of the law and the state. It is the epitome of power being distributed to the few and entirely denied to the many, and as such it is a site of terrifying abuses of power. People in prison are routinely sexually assaulted, often by their jailers. When we appeal to the violent authority of the state to punish our abusers, we are complicit in perpetuating the power dynamics that we claim to oppose.

We need to explore systems of justice that hold people accountable to each other, rather than to a higher power. Wherever we concentrate power, we will see abuse.

Viewing Sexual Harassment through an Intersectional Lens

Although we are framing this primarily in gendered terms, the identities “male” and “female” are just proxies with which to discuss different degrees of power and privilege. Whose voices we hear and how we respond to those voices is determined by a myriad of other factors including race, sexual orientation, economic status, ability status, and first language. In seeking to disentangle ourselves from patriarchy, we need to internalize the way our privileges protect us from harm that others face. We need to listen to the stories of those most likely to be harmed under patriarchy and capitalism: black women’s stories, trans people’s stories, undocumented workers’ stories, poor people’s stories.

We need to take note of whose voices those in power seek to discredit. For example, the only sexual assault charges Harvey Weinstein has specifically disputed came from the only black woman, Lupita Nyong’o, who has accused him of harassment or assault.

This Is about Power, not Sex

Although women also perpetrate sexual assault, we are statistically far less likely to do so than men. Is this because women are inherently better, more moral, or less violent than men? If we are, it is in part because we, as non-men, are not taught that we must embody the norms of toxic masculinity that are symptomatic of patriarchy, i.e., that women are objects, or that our self-worth is based on the number of women we fuck. Men’s internalized toxic masculinity accounts for many of the reasons they sexually assault women.

Some have suggested that the solution to rampant sexual harassment and assault is that women should replace men in all positions of power. But the problem is not the condition of maleness; the problem is patriarchy, an unequal distribution of power. As long as some hold power over others, the powerful will prey on the less powerful, regardless of who occupies these roles.

Patriarchy is not the bad behavior of a few specific men, but the framework of relations that fosters it.

So What Do We Do?

To call out sexual predators without seeking to dismantle the system of power that created them is like bailing water out of a sinking ship. The fundamental problem isn’t a shortfall of publicity, law, policy, or education; the fundamental problem is that the systems that purport to keep us safe make us vulnerable.

We have to weave together the ways that we respond to specific instances of sexual harassment and violence with a determination to confront and undermine the social order that gives rise to them. In every case of male violence, we should be clear that we are not dealing with an exception, but with a problem that is a structural feature of our society. At the same time, we need to create models of transformative justice that can replace the criminal justice system without replicating any feature of it, and to foster new ways of relating in which patriarchy, white supremacy, and other forms of authority do not determine the possibilities of our lives. Every person of every gender stands to gain from this.

Let us join hands, teeth bared.

“I’m not your prey, I still have teeth” by kAt Philbin.

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

SCUM will not picket, demonstrate, march or strike to attempt to achieve its ends. Such tactics are for nice, genteel ladies who scrupulously take only such action as is guaranteed to be ineffective… If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President’s stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.

–Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto

Further Reading

The history of sexual assault in the United States:

Slavery and the Roots of Sexual Harassment by Adrienne D. Davis

Feminism and the Labor Movement: A Century of Collaboration and Conflict by Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck writing for CUNY’s New Labor Forum

Sexual Harassment Law Was Shaped by the Battles of Black Women by Raina Lipsitz writing for The Nation

Alternatives to criminal justice:

Sexual Assault Resources from North East Anarchist Network (particularly the Accountability Processes section)

Revolution and Restorative Justice: An Anarchist Perspective by Peter Kletsan writing for Abolition Journal

Accounting for Ourselves: Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes from CrimethInc.

Sexual assault and neoliberalism:

Profiting from Rape: Sexual Violence and the Capitalist State by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back writing for The Feminist Wire

The Consent of the Ungoverned by Laurie Penny writing for LongReads

Sexual assault on the margins:

Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the US to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment by Grace Meng published in Human Rights Watch

Sexual Assault When You’re on the Margins: Can We All Say #MeToo? by Collier Meyerson writing for The Nation

[hegemonicpolitics-blog]

An Introductory Rant

Part 1

"All I know is that I am not a Marxist." So allegedly said Marx on the topic of a particular French self-proclaimed Marxist party. My own self-application of this idea has come at a mild sense of disappointment, but I think is fundamentally reasonable.

I've attempted to move by thought towards the neo-communism of writers like Alain Baidou and Slavoj Žižek. In understanding Marx I still wish to hold to the idea of the historical dialectic, at this current stage with its worker/capitalist antitheses, is only resolved in communism, that is, the complete abolition of wage labour and private property. However, the 'human nature' argument that I've desired so long to ignore has continued to resurface.

In a situation where the wealth of society is held in common, we understand from game theory and the 'tragedy of the commons' concept, that self-interest threatens a collective-interest when it comes to the commons. As soon as self-interest triumphs, all self-interest becomes necessary because the collective-interest is diminished in its returns.

The necessity then is to impose collective-interest, which fundamentally is what we do in democratic societies a lot of the time. While neoliberalism and the right has continually said that unbridled capitalism shall eventually, through the 'invisible hand' or 'trickle down economics', distribute wealth in a fair fashion, this is simply not the case, and we have observed the impacts of decreasing regulation and control on people and the environment.

Social democracy naturally mediates between pure liberalism and pure communism; we place regulation, restriction, taxation and the other thing upon society in order to reign in the worst excesses. Naturally this is not perfect; if democratic it exists in conflict with power interests, and thus cannot survive indefinitely unlike communism, and on the other hand it keeps intact capitalism as a system, only emulating or simulating a more egalitarian approach artificially. Wage labour relations and the relations of production still exist, they are simply softened.

However communism, in the forms we have witnesses develop in the world, has the same problems. Fundamentally capitalism still exists, simply in another form: state capitalism. The state exploits surplus value and converts workers' output into exchange-value, continuing the same alienation as under capitalism.

The key differences are two-fold: it removes the progressive tendencies of wealth distribution of capitalism (in creating new wealth through investment), thus rendering it considerably less prosperous, and it requires significant energies to enforce. In this way it is less efficient, less free and continues the same fundamental capitalist functions.

In order to de-commodify the labour of humans, it abolishes market mechanism and gives birth to economic planning. In this sense, it becomes even worse, because it replaces liberal democracy with bureaucracy.

It has its advantages. The exploited surplus value can be redistributed or put into building the commons for the collective-interest. But once again this relies on the new bureaucracy to hold as its class-interests the interests of the proletariat.

So this is my opposition to neocommunism. It is utopian in a sense, in that it fits in with an old fashioned Hegelian concept; that of the ideal, which is somehow achieved through the resolution of the dialectic. It is fundamentally unscientific, and also seems to rely too heavily on the Hegelian concept of the Geist.

Even in Marxism's anti-humanist materialism, there is fundamentally some sort of Geist at conflict with itself who discovers its alienated parts are in fact part of its whole. It is obfuscated by cries of 'materialism!' and 'science!', but the former doesn't resolve the inherent idealism in Marxism Hegelian roots, and the latter only works in the context of the 19th century German notion of 'science', which is thoroughly rejected by scientists today who adhere to genuine rigour and genuine physical phenomena.

Neo-communism understands the Soviet experience, but it shrinks back into its shell and proclaims the vaguest of all possible concepts of communism in order to justify its righteousness. It proclaims that we cannot allow ourselves to throw in the towel to capitalism and accept wage labour as necessary. But it provides absolutely nothing except a fetishisation of the word that indicates not political, economic and philosophic thoroughness, but the sad musings of ex-communists pining for the Soviet era with their own petty devolved Leninism.

Žižek is a sad old curmudgeon who can't quite accept being called a social democrat, and so gives into to old fashioned Leninism hidden behind a 21st century democratic mask. Communism is dead, wake up.

PS: Communism can survive, so long as it asserts itself as fundamentally utopian, rather than making claims to scientific truth.

Part 2

Hegemony is the perfect launchpad for those departing Marxism for social democracy, or, as Laclau and Mouffe refer to it, radical democracy. While the two terms are not the same, they are similar in philosophy if not in modern application. I would attach myself to the socialist strains of social democracy, not those deliberative and technocratic ones that have developed since the 1990s.

But why hegemony? For this we must return to Marx. Many aspects of Marx have been rejected by an array of thinkers. His economics requires serious refinement and tries to distill it down the fundamental scientific laws that do not necessarily materialise. Aspects of his critique are certainly useful; his explanation of the labour theory of value and how that gives way to surplus-value are innovative concepts that need to be integrated into any critique of capitalism. But the tendency for profits to fall, for wages to fall, and crises of overproduction have not surfaced to the degree that he believed they would.

His dialectics have been problematic as well, due to the issue of the collective-interest that is supposedly completed by the synthesis of the capitalist/workers antitheses. I discuss this in my rant on neo-communism in more detail.

But his conception of capitalism in the sense of the base-superstructural relationship, integral to the creation of sociology, is important. While the crude economic determinist explanation of this phenomena has been discounted, that of the Second International, we can nonetheless understand it as a great model for interpreting society.

We cannot, as will be demonstrated by putting even the slightest amount of thought to it, assert the 'primacy of the base'. The base-superstructural relationship is the totality of human experience; neither part spontaneously generates new conditions or relations, they solely feed into each other. Thus, the only distinction between the two is perhaps which exists first. There can be no primary role that is anything but a human distinction.

Alternatively a distinction can be made; the base is the only 'real' element, while the superstructure is fundamentally unreal. But this ten effectively becomes a reductionist philosophy, which undermines sexual, gender, racial and environmental struggles down to anti-capitalism. This we cannot do once again, as the economic determinism of old fashioned Marxism does not provide any ability to make scientific predictions, and is thus we cannot assert this reductionism as truth. If we could determine in which ways scientifically that capitalism enshrines the gendered, sexual, racial and environmental issues that we come up against, certainly those could be integrated, but understanding them as coming solely from the base is disingenuous and beyond what we can prove, and in the end undermines many aspects of these struggles.

But a nuanced, reciprocal base-superstructural relationship does help us understand one thing: hegemony.

To be continued...

[gibsongirlselections]

Pelosi Cancels History By Removing Her Predecessors

On June 18, the portraits of four former Speakers of the House, all connected to the Confederate States of America and the Civil War, were removed from the walls of the Capitol. In the words of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “There is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy.” And so down went Robert Hunter of Virginia, James Orr of South Carolina, and Howell Cobb and Charles Crisp, both of Georgia.

Of course, this removal comes at a time when statues and monuments are being vandalized, toppled, and removed all over the country, leading Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.), to exclaim, “Where does all this end? Renaming ‘Washington’ DC?”

As Douglas Bradburn, president of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, said to  Just the News, “If we fail to honor George Washington, because we understand him only as a slave owner, we will lose the story of the United States, for it will have no beginning and very little direction.” Or as Cicero, the ancient Roman, put it, “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.”

Massie, Bradburn, and Cicero all make good points, and yet for the moment, we might confine ourselves just to those four Speakers who have been “canceled”—that is, sent down the Orwellian memory hole. All were interesting figures, and so as they go off to historical exile, even if we don’t like them, they can still offer us something to remember. 

For instance, consider Orr, one of the disappeared. He was without doubt a Confederate, and yet as the South Carolina Encyclopedia details, after a lifetime as a Democrat and then as a Secessionist, in 1870, “Orr joined the Republican Party in the hope of effecting reforms.” That is, he switched from the Party of Jefferson Davis to the Party of Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, “As a delegate to the 1872 Republican national convention, he praised President Ulysses Grant’s [anti] Ku Klux Klan policy in South Carolina.”   

Was Orr sincere in his change of heart? Or was he just an opportunistic “scalawag”? That’s for historians to sort out, and yet President Grant appointed him to be ambassador to Russia, as the Encyclopedia tells us, “a gesture of reconciliation.” Isn’t that exactly what we should want? A coming together and a healing of national wounds? And so shouldn’t we be learning about past positive precedents?  

Then there’s Charles Crisp, who in some ways is the most interesting of the quartet; he had the most extensive career after the Civil War, rising near to the pinnacle of American political life.  As such, his career offers lessons to anyone wishing to learn about practical politics; indeed, his story illustrates a key lesson of life itself: Those who are at the bottom can sometimes rise to the top, and those who are on top can sometimes fall to the bottom. So with that in mind, who knows who will be canceling whom a century from now?

Born in 1845, Crisp served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War; in 1864, he was captured at Spotsylvania, spending the rest of the war as a POW. Released back to Georgia, he became a lawyer, a judge, and a state legislator. Then in 1882, he was elected to the U.S. House.

In 1890, the Democrats won a national majority in the House, and the following year, Crisp was elected Speaker of the 52nd Congress—putting him third in line for the presidency.

As one historian observed, Crisp was “a skillful debater and an expert parliamentarian,” adding, “He was a man of marked judicial temperament—calm and deliberate with the ability to maintain his own dignity and the dignity of his position.” Now, of course, such a description can be applied to just about every Speaker; the nature of the post is that it goes to a savvy insider who can gain the confidence of fellow insiders, each of them jockeying on behalf of themselves, their committees, and their districts. To put the job description another way, the Speaker is the ultimate deal-maker.

Indeed, the Democratic Party itself was a web of deals in those days; it consisted mostly of Southern white Protestants and Northern Catholics. The two factions had been on opposite sides of religious disputes tracing back to the Reformation; in America in particular, the split came over temperance, the Southerners being “dry” and the Northerners “wet.” In fact, the two blocs didn’t have much in common at all—except for a shared hostility to Northern Protestants, who were overwhelmingly Republican.

The Democratic Party consisted, then, of groups that felt victimized by Yankee power, both economic and cultural; the great tycoons and robber barons of the day, running the railroads, Wall Street, and the “trusts,” were almost all Republicans, as were the culture-producers of Boston and New York City. (And yes, the political map of the late 19th century was mostly the inverse of the red-blue map of today—that which was then-Republican being now Democratic, and that which was then-Democratic being now Republican.)

This was the political world of Charles Crisp. His region, the South, still bore the stain of rebellion and slavery, and yet white Southerners were nonetheless able to form a coalition with enough Northerners to make “Democracy,” as it was often called then, competitive in national elections; in fact, as soon as 1876—barely more than a decade after the end of the Civil War—the Democrats won a clear popular-vote majority in the presidential election, although the GOP candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, prevailed in the electoral college.

So when Crisp took the Speaker’s gavel in 1891—the first Deep Southerner to do so since 1859—it represented a huge victory, not only for the man himself, but also for his region. One could even say that Dixie proved better at politicking, inside the system, than at rebelling, outside the system. 

Now, of course, the victory of white Southerners in those days came at the expense of black Southerners, who were almost all Lincoln Republicans. In fact, Southern Democrats had used their political skills, working with Northern Democrats, to discredit and dislodge the Republican policy of Reconstruction. And then, once the U.S. Army was out of the way, Southern whites—not to put too fine a point on it—used their martial skills to disenfranchise, and otherwise subjugate, blacks.

It’s this racial history, of course, that dominates popular understanding today, and so Crisp and others are now in political limbo—or worse.

And yet there was another side to the 19th-century Southern Democrats: economic populism. In 1890, Congressman Crisp had supported the Sherman Anti-Trust Act—anti-trust, of course, being a progressive governmental remedy that it has gone in and out of fashion many times over the last 130 years—and in these days of Big Tech, it has been making a comeback.  

Then, in 1894, when he was Speaker, Crisp help shepherd the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act into law.  That bill provided for a modest reduction in trade duties, and also, remarkably, it included a federal income tax. To be sure, the rate was low, just two percent on incomes over $4,000 (adjusted for inflation, that would be almost $100,000 today), and yet nonetheless, the enactment of any income tax was a watershed. (The Supreme Court threw out the tax as unconstitutional in 1895, and so an amendment to the Constitution, permitting an income tax, was a great Democratic cause for the next two decades; it was finally put in place by a Southern-born Democrat, Woodrow Wilson.)

Of course, the popularity of the income tax has waxed and waned over the years, and rates have risen and fallen, and yet it has never been in jeopardy of being abolished; the exigencies of financing a modern government require such taxation. Indeed, it seems likely that rates will be increased in the next few years.

So we can see: Even if Crisp himself has been de-platformed, some of the economic ideas he championed seem poised for a comeback.

Crisp died in 1896; his admiring constituents elected his son to succeed him in the House. Indeed, there’s a Crisp County, Georgia, named in his honor.

Of course, the life of Charles Crisp is of no interest to those who simply want to erase history. For them, he and his kind are gone with the wind—and good riddance. 

Yet Crisp’s political career is a reminder that even the defeated can yet be the victorious, provided they possess the necessary resolve and resilience. Indeed, not that she would ever admit it, but Nancy Pelosi, Crisp’s fellow Democrat, might feel a kinship to his ability to count votes and wrangle coalitions, especially on behalf of progressive economic policies.

So when America gets done with this spasm of iconoclasm, the thoughtful will realize that the secrets of effective politics have not been destroyed—and are still extant, in fact, in the biographies of the dead. So even if every statue or place honoring Crisp is pulled down or renamed, the ambitious, or merely curious, will still be able to learn about him; if they do, they’ll understand something about coalitions and comebacks.

After all, as another Southern Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, wrote in 1817, “A morsel of genuine history [is] a thing so rare as to be always valuable.” Yes, Jefferson, too, is now on the PC chopping block, and yet he was wise enough to know that the judgments of history are never permanent.

Indeed, the actual events of history are, of course, permanent, and those “morsels,” when gleaned, are always valuable. As a result, Hunter, Orr, Cobb, and Crisp will always abide with us, even if we dare not speak their name.

The post Pelosi Cancels History By Removing Her Predecessors appeared first on The American Conservative.

[monrougirfashion-blog]

Jaipur, Jewel in the Desert

Since this weekend boasts three of the greatest and most respected global gem and jewellery events of this year! July 19th - 22nd is a particularly agonizing time of this year, as many jewelers are torn between selecting which series to attend - China? Beijing? Europe? All three displays are tremendous for the business and every event has its persuasive reasons for attending. Whether you are likely to attend or not, you still ought to understand what's happening around the planet. China's enormous increase in Jewelry ingestion is which makes it one of the biggest customers of fine jewellery. If you are a shopper by livelihood (and wish to remain that way), then you better start preparing to your clients' and China's growing jewelry demands. Read some fascinating information about China and its flourishing growth below. baby carriers   

Everybody understands that India is among the leading resources For diamonds and coloured stones. India has among the richest gemstone and jewellery markets on the planet. Collectively they have over 30 percent of the planet's whole supply of precious metals and jewels. What better place to find exceptional deals and quality jewels than straight in the origin? Jaipur, India, is holding one of their most anticipated events of this year and it is happening !

South Russia holds among Europe's most esteemed gem and jewellery shows yearly. With tens of thousands of exhibitors and stalls, and among the most well-known jewelry-making competitions on earth, why would anybody want to forget a series too extravagant as InterJeweler 2013? If you are looking to make your mark from the jewellery business and need to make a reputation for good jewelry design and craftsmanship, then Russia's gemstone and jewellery occasion,'InterJeweler' is an occasion for you. Winners of this jewelry-making competition earn fame, fortune and a reputation for unmatched quality.

It actually does not matter which If you are lucky enough to attend any of those worldwide events, then you will be the envy of many jewelers worldwide. But even in the event that you can not attend one or more one of these wonderful jewelry displays, it is still important as a jeweler and also a part of this trade to be conscious of industry-related events happening all around you, and not only locally, but internationally. After all, once the displays are completed, thousands of jewellery fanatics return house inspired by what they saw. Everybody will be seeking new and fascinating designs and guess where they are going to appear first? Well, neighborhood buyers generally means local suppliers, and so you! Town of India. He might have started young, but he's remembered as one of the most important rulers who attracted reform and development throughout his life, the crowning glory of that is Jaipur.

For Ladies, Jai Singh abolished His contribution to astronomy has been that the building of many observatories, such as one which remains in working order in Jaipur. For many decades, there was discussion of treasure being held in the Fort and throughout Indira Ghandi's authorities, income tax officers held a comprehensive search of the assumptions in an effort to confiscate the valuables, but it's uncertain whether anything had been found. According to rumors, the gold was buried in water tanks at the Jaigargh Fort. Additionally, the City of Jaipur is nestled inside protective walls which house a set of gates.

The initial capital was 11 km outside the town Jai Singh II transferred the capital to Jaipur to accommodate the expanding population and to enable the individuals better access to water. The Amber Fort is an amazing work of design, built from red sandstone and marble. It includes a carving of Ganesh made from one bit of coral, two silver lions and a silver foliage door. The immense urns stand in 1.6 meters tall and will hold 4000 gallons of water every day. They're the world's biggest sterling silver boats and have been made from 14,000 silver coins.

Jaipur is popularly Called the Pink City due to its pink buildings, that have been embellished to the Prince of Wales's trip in 1876. Ever since that time, the pink has remained. Among the excellent things Jai Singh II did because of his area was supposed to restore and produce the irrigation system for town, bringing water into the semi-arid Sea and turning the brown landscape green. But it's not because of this reason that Jaipur is occasionally known as the Emerald City; the bead business has led in this affectionate nickname. After the town was assembled, Jai Singh II encouraged artists and amateurs, such as jewelers, to make their house in Jaipur and function the royal household. This has led to Jaipur becoming an important centre for coloured yarn processing and trade, especially emeralds. photo engraved necklace

Since the period of Jai Singh, diamonds have Been cut, polished and set into jewellery in Jaipur and even now, you will find a terrific deal of lapidaries and jewellery stores in town. Gemstones from all around the world pass through this ancient location of artisans. The jewellery made there's a mix of traditional and contemporary, such as Indian bits like meenakari (enamel function ), kundan jewelry, contemporary jewelry, beaded braceletsand beaded necklaces. A few of the jewelers in Jaipur have ancestors that produced jewellery for the royal household.

Jaipur Is a Superb town, constructed With both functional and aesthetic factors. It has been a hive of activity and also an important place concerning the rich culture and history of India, and also the international colored gemstone and jewellery industry.wikipedia

[lifeofthefly-blog1]

A Better World Is Possible

PunkerslutA Better nature Is PossiblePolitics Articles | June 29, 2005It regards reality as the lone enemy and as the source of all suffering, with which it is impossible to live, so that one must break off all relations with it if one is to be in several way happy. The misanthrope turns his back on the nature and will have no truck with it. But one can do more than that; one jar try to recreate the world, to build ascend in its stead something else world in which endemic most oppressive features are eliminated and replaced by others that are in conformity with one's endemic wishes.-- Sigmund Freud "Civilization and individual Discontents," by Sigmund Freud, chapter 2If a bearing that harbor love and affectionately adored honesty were to spawn two gods, they would be sadness and optimism. The premier gave them the appearance and sight to comprehend what is wrong, after holding single-minded to prejudice and bigotry. The twin gave them the energy and capacity to create a better world, smooth if it started and ended with one transferred soul. climactic bible of this generation, the holy text and scripture which they would refer to in their daily lives, would repose of dialogue free movies the particular two gods. Pessimism invariably seemed to represent apathy, a impression of inactivity accompanied by lost dreams. But, next again, it was the agitator, the creator, the mover. Optimism would repeatedly seem to represent enterprise and growth, a impression of soul and a desire to do something about it, as great as easts and pleasure. This origination of admirer and brain would ritual these demon through acts of kindness, mercy, and love. The names they would grant their toddler would have hidden meanings, like "romantic poet," or "moment of orgasm."If a good person were to try to live up to the expectation of change and growth with the audacious honesty to look forward, he would be a cynic as much as an optimist. His hallowed scripture would simply be: "A Better World prevail Possible."When we look simultaneous our endemic society, scrutinize its process and owned manners, we discover a great transaction that we wish to change. privately see crime, we look poverty, we see poison addictions, murder, war, calm abuse, adolescent abuse, rape, theft, brutality, and exploitation of without exception power. these of the humane style have constantly believed that it was the generosity of men that transfer them stable for peace and strength. Today, we stand on the carrion of modern life. attractiveness may have been the social sentiment which enjoy brought Columbia together and has develop our families, our towns, our cities, and our nations, but there is so abundant more to it then that. downtown have convert the colony of carnality and misery, the splendid strangers to loneliness. Our modern writer and romantics stand ahead this sensation of life, and are speechless.When we think of pain and suffering, what do you think it is that is the most sinister source of suffering? skilled is no doubt that it is from any relationship within society, or at bottom within human civilization. maybe it is the biased social relationship between father and women, resulting in sexism and domestic abuse? Perhaps it is the unjust marriage that live between nations, resulting in economic embargos and wars? Maybe it is the relationship between citizens, suggest crime and theft, or the relationship between executive and employee, resulting in poverty and misery? Whatever it is that is the enormous cause of suffering in the world, there are some effects that requirement be considered. First, we are inspect the exchange that live between one by one other to discover the roots of this suffering. It is an constitutional problem. attractiveness is not a question of innate disasters and the energy that nature has wrought on mankind. No, it is a question of the means that we act with ourselves, the customs we forge anad the guideline we make. Second, as Freethinkers and those actually concerned with justice, although we study these communication in society, we end so with the firm of devise a further free and more equitable system.The needed difference new between an Anarchist and a Liberal is this: the Liberal wants to repair the damage ended by the system, the Anarchist longing to rehabilitation the system. The first looks to poverty and creates welfare, completely leaving the monetary system untouched. The last wants to completely revoke any fiscal system that will advantage to homelessness, poverty, or misery.It was not unusual or singular in our past for these social relationships to change, convert altered, or become perfectly abolished. interest was formerly tradition that men thrill women like property, that wars inserted nations were glorious events, that poverty was gouts naturally hand out condition for a assertive class of people, that crime was simply supporting nature to each human, and therefore indefeatable. gross of this was hold by the people, they took it in as unquestionable truths. Well, it was the liberating maturity of either honest individual, to realize that every conscious person simply wish to be free. From such a humble start, the development of cordial thought has come a long way. Citizens have collectively allocated women's rights, worker's rights, children's rights, citizen's rights, etc., etc., protecting the freedom, security, and joy of these who have been distressed for so long.Do you think the happiness of the mediocre person, from these ancient times to our instant situation, enjoy increased? I imagine that few would disagree with me. It was by altering and changing the above-mentioned relationships halfway the peculiar groups that a better, more peaceful terms of living move about. So, when we decide to examine the social manners and communication of our own era, and unearth such large amounts of suffering, the only reasonable response to these locality is this: we prerequisite reorganize society, change the relationships, rehabilitation (or revolutionize) the scheme itself, previously we will stop regarding the illness that it causes. What we would be performance would be a rebel activity, in that we would be altering our own earth to attain our inherent ends, in the better radical form possible. allure would also be the tradition of spirited ability to overthrow oppressors and cast slim any string or thralldom they have given to the innocent.Our questions precondition be twofold. 1) What are the relationships that are precipitate so much stress, misery, pain, and suffering on others? 2) What jar we execute to advance them?Crime. What causes it? Any literate person will give the same answer: the wish or use of earthly objects. whenever the compensation offered by employers execute not gratify the demand of the workers, that is to say, the people who have no property, suddenly criminal enterprise becomes the result. Psychologists and psychiatrists might fling to organize criminal behavior, trying to put confines and streak through it so that they can understand it. The one thing that they do not recognize about scandalous behavior is that it is not unique, that it is not special, that it is as it may be the largest natural sector of brute life. If a creator bear is interested in obtaining cuisine for endemic young, complete it forever consider the fact that it is violating intrusion laws in doing so, or does it consistently consider the opinion of other bears? Maybe isolated insomuch as it thing her and her cub's welfare, but beyond that, not at all. affecting creature is simply committing an action that is required for life. So, too, is the individual who violate crime to survive, meanwhile no normal means of income will suffice.The shrink might be right that the scholar changes fairly with scandalous behavior. modern instincts, behaviors, reflexes, and understandings are required in group behavior. All of the shoplifters that I know, counting myself, have developed group senses -- we develop a subconscious that analyzes and recognize where anybody in the room is and where they are looking. aforementioned allows Land of Liberty the facility of alert if we are living watched, an invaluable skill for New World lifters.Without poverty, there is no crime. Crime is caused individual by the poor circumstances in which human living live, and their critical attempts to escape the particular conditions. through least, this can be considered genuine with all those conditions in which property violation is involved. We wish to promote a system, an form of society, in which crime is completely eliminated. That is our objective. What form would we mend or forge the current rule so as to exhaustive our objective? Well, although we eye at the particular who have been expose with the miserable career of criminal, what dashing in specific are we examining? The working class. Their marriage that transfer them to poverty and eventually felony is the their accord with the Capitalist class, or the employer class.The only way to sew this relationship, between the haves and the have nots, is to produce it so the product of it is other wealth in the canned of the have nots. This bottle be exhausted with a policy so limited and conservative as minimum wage, minimum working hours, safe working conditions, lowering the work opportunity per week, etc., etc.. All of these laws, if they were be implemented within a government's laws, should be occupying on the collective's perceptive that the working guy must be protected -- not from other working men, but from the particular whom they work for. With these limited policies, the company class would be scrutinize much like the government: a unavoidable evil, beyond which we would have tranquility and peace, at least for a meager while.In a more anxious effort, we might knock out the executive class entirely, dissolve it into the working body of citizens. It receive been aforesaid that to establish Democracy, every settler must be treated alike a king. If we apply the same argument to economics, in an effort to eliminate the poverty that comes from Free Trade, then without exception citizen must be consider like a Capitalist. proving this system, the sound conflict that would arrise in a Capitalist scheme -- with workers boxing for continuing wages and the company class militant for worsened sweat shop conditions -- this sound conflict would be removed, and commodity called socialism or Leninism would revenue effect. comic relationship that causes poverty, misery, and so great abuse of the spirit is the relationship that exists among those outwardly property, who must sell their energy to survive, and the particular with property, who engage the proletariat to task for them. To oust this relationship, thus eliminating the conflict, we are establishing a better world. Among the most great revolutions, Bolshevism and totalitarianism are of the capital degree for any revolutionary.When we essay to feel of the relationships in society that allow for a big deal of unnecessary misfortune and misery, we gravitate to think about the relationships that exist inserted us and those that we appreciation and distress about. fly literature of every fashion and without exception era, we find that adultery acquire been at the cause of heartache for so many lovers. It enjoy been the inspiration to a number of sad poetry. attractiveness has prevail the element of so much conflict, so scads fighting, so much bickering and violence. I grant that a little cultures were intelligent and thoughtful adequate to sidestep such impractical brutality and misery. However, as we see it in our modern world, it is quite straightforward to recognize that the relationship that exists among lovers is one of great distress and pain. We are attracted to it by the thought of happiness, pleasure, a feeling of connection and mutual understanding. The provenance of intimate relationships are the clone in whatever culture: they come from the greater natural desire to aura love, as though the universe put up end and all a lover bottle do would be to welcome it.Yet, we watch so much abuse appear from this relationship that exists amid lovers. dramaturgic time for a late moral cryptograph is necessary. The past has consistently been ripe. I submit that admirer learn to love further openly, that their communication are not confined to one customer only -- what in fact receive been the cause of all these problems. conceding that sexual movement with other partners was accepted in our stylish society, formerly the dilemma of the lonely and disheartened sweetheart disappears. meanwhile we enroll to take that distribution sexuality with others is a clear aspect of life, in that it creates affection, something beautiful, and a connection -- when we learn to accept this, then so much misery, pain, and depression would be mop out. But, the dilemma of the matter is in dynamic ourselves, in learning to accept that you cannot tell one what to do with their bodies, even in a relationship. I'm not evading a double standard. Men should be as promiscuous as they like, as should any woman. It can be problematic and great for woman to defeated these cordial prejudices. privately wince each one time the thought of a abandoned lover move to mind, and we are forewarned of the pain that comes from a deceased passion. our own selves do not forget the misery that we have suffered, that others have, that residue still will, and it is our intention as revolutionaries to uphold our scripture: a better earth is possible.There are so many origins of pain and so many new great resolve and variation that put up happen in our current society to abolish the sources of misery. affecting animals of the earth are liquidate for the taste of their dissolve carcasses. premier and dictator switch house constantly as I treasure more and more crowd confused at the constitutional situation. essay are taboo at the same juncture courts precedent guilt by association is "reason to convict." guy and mariner are heaved in penitentiary when they make the personal judgment to make drunk themselves, and gain a gentle happiness via counterfeit means. slave slave away at work, hours of their get-up-and-go taken off with delusion crumbling and sinking.I want to detonate when I see the walls of chain convenience stores and rip away the dreariness of a "brick behind brick" architecture. In my dreams, I am catching enormous cask of makeup to prepare child-like depiction of clouds on the side of every Walmart. I hankering to house a paper-mache rose on the rung of each one girl who feels alone, give a confident conversation to without exception boy who feels alone. I want to shriek for whole rape. I want to die for every resurfaced memory. I want family to uncertainty less backward death, and think also about their life as a unique and fascinating experience. I want community to stress less back life, and concentrate on the sector of contemporary that accord a reaction of ease. Everywhere that I turn, every statement of the strangers I talk to, they are based on so copious petty things. I want swing my arms and lose sympathetic of my consciousness, and... let go... I requirement to give go... furthermore maybe find a little peace, a little understanding, a slight "the marvelous part of life is that nation can be called the collective training of each one living and breathing creature," maybe in the bossom of intoxication.www.punkerslut.comFor Life,Punkerslut Article Tags: superior World, Relationship Between, Exists Between, vicious Behavior, Employer Class Punkerslut (or any Carloff) receive been writing essays and poetry on social argument which have caught his attention for several years. His website www.punkerslut.com contribute a complete list of all of these writings. His soul experience includes homelessness, squating in unusual Orleans and LA, dropping out of high school, getting expelled from alma mater for "subversive activities," and a infinite of auxiliary revolutionary actions.