#i don't like economics though

[misericordieux]

I might need a phd in economics or/and humanism to preach publicly about what I want to preach about.

[tanadrin]

Ok this might be a strange ask, but. do you have any opinions on the marxist/leninist/whatever idea that, western capitalist states supply a welfare state and higher wages (and so on) for western workers through imperialism, in order to subdue class struggle in western states, so that the western proletariat basically has a hand in imperialism (that anti-imperialism in practice would materially harm the western proletariat)

i think that's wrong. i think it sounds like a way you can rationalize political disengagement in a both-sidesist kinda way and also accelerationism if you're into that; i think that kind of nebulously conspiratorial belief is also a way to sort of rationalize the red-brown alliance, the need to punish the bad sheep people who don't agree with you, and a way to discount anybody who uses actual substantive policy achievements as a way to point out that actually, yes, engaging with politics can produce positive outcomes.

it is factually incorrect, of course. there's no causal connection between the welfare state and capitalist imperialism. capitalist imperialism in the form that hardcore marxists are thinking of is kind of an anachronism anyway. much like "liberalism," they're using a lens of analysis which basically thinks history ended in 1917, that the systems and politics of the long 19th century have continued forever, and we have to sort everything into categories that are a century old even though the world has changed radically since then.

it is also, annoyingly, a rejection of the wins of leftism. leftism has done a lot of good in the world! i think leftism is directionally correct. many of the things we take for granted now in many wealthy countries--the 40-hour workweek, legal protection for unions and labor organizing, universal healthcare (outside the US of course), the existence of welfare programs in various forms, employee protections (weak in the US except for Montana; strong in many other countries), and, you know, the decolonization of most of the planet--these are all things leftists of various stripes fought and died for, and for good reason!

the reason "leftism" is weak--and of course by "leftism" people taking this position usually only mean their own particular flavor of revolutionary leftism, with everybody else being a scumbag liberal or a revisionist or a trotskyist sabateur or w/e--is because leftism keeps winning when it allies with aligned interests in an electoral context. that is to say, pragmatic progressive politics is historically quite effective (the thing Americans have historically called "liberalism" but which in international political language is closer to "social democracy," and is not Reaganism/Thatcherism), is quite willing to ally with people who share its goals including less self-defeating leftists, and continues to make new gains. see this page. there is no telos to history of course, and it's a constant struggle. but the revolution-only remnant needs to come up with a narrative to rationalize being left out in the cold, because without that rationalization their whole approach starts to come under indictment. so it can't be that their politics is ineffective--it's the sheeple bribed into shutting up by welfare!

[post-futurism]

Tired of seeing North American election politics on my dash and the only thing I'll say about it is that it was a seriously bad move to not have compulsory voting for all citizens. Part of being an adult is making hard decisions and getting to opt out of that by legally not voting is not the gotcha that a lot of people think it is.

[theroundbartable]

Me: positive responses to my school work? The hell?

Teacher: well, yeah, you did good-

Me: but this- I! Did this!

Teacher: yes. Well done

Me: holy shite! I did good? What if I do another task?

Teacher: awesome!!!!

Me:

I present to you: the mind boggling concept of getting praised for your accomplishments rather than punished for your mistakes.

I've been living off this experience for over 6 months.

[wonder-worker]

"Among their complaints [in 1460, the Yorkists] specifically blamed the earls of Wiltshire and Shrewsbury and Viscount Beaumont for ‘stirring’ the king [Henry VI] to hold a parliament at Coventry that would attaint them and for keeping them from the king’s presence and likely mercy, asserting that this was done against [the king's] will. To this they added the charge that these evil counselors were also tyrannizing other true men* without the king’s knowledge. Such claims of malfeasance obliquely raised the question of Henry’s fitness as a king, for how could he be deemed competent if such things happened without his knowledge and against his wishes? They also tied in rumors circulating somewhat earlier in the southern counties and likely to have originated in Calais that Henry was really ‘good and gracious Lord to the [Yorkists] since, it was alleged, he had not known of or assented to their attainders. On 11 June the king was compelled to issue a proclamation stating that they were indeed traitors and that assertions to the contrary were to be ignored." - Helen Maurer, "Margaret of Anjou: "Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England"

Three things that we can surmise from this:

We know where the "Henry was an innocent helpless king being controlled and manipulated by his Evil™ advisors" rhetoric came from**.

The Yorkists were deliberately trying to downplay Henry VI's actual role and involvement in politics and the Wars of the Roses. They cast him as a "statue of a king", blamed all royal policies and decisions on others*** (claiming that Henry wasn't even aware of them), and framed themselves as righteous and misunderstood counselors who remained loyal to the crown. We should keep this in mind when we look at chronicles' comments of Henry's alleged passivity and the so-called "role reversal" between him and Queen Margaret.

Henry VI's actual agency and involvement is nevertheless proven by his own actions. We know what he thought of the Yorkists, and we know he took the effort to publicly counter their claims through a proclamation of his own. That speaks louder than the politically motivated narrative of his enemies, don't you think?

*There was some truth to these criticisms. For example, Wiltshire (ie: one of the men named in the pamphlet) was reportedly involved in a horrible situation in June which included hangings and imprisonments for tax resistance in Newbury. The best propagandists always contain a degree of truth, etc. **I've seen some theories on why Margaret of Anjou wasn't mentioned in these pamphlets alongside the others even though she was clearly being vilified during that time as well, and honestly, I think those speculations are mostly unnecessary. Margaret was absent because it was regarded as very unseemly to target queens in such an officially public manner. We see a similar situation a decade later: Elizabeth Woodville was vilified and her whole family - popularly and administratively known as "the queen's kin" - was disparaged in Warwick and Clarence's pamphlets. This would have inevitably associated her with their official complaints far more than Margaret had been, but she was also not directly mentioned. It was simply not considered appropriate. ***This narrative was begun by the Duke of York & Warwick and was - demonstrably - already widespread by the end of 1460. When Edward IV came to power, there seems to have been a slight shift in how he spoke of Henry (he referred to Henry as their "great enemy and adversary"; his envoys were clearly willing to acknowledge Henry's role in Lancastrian resistance to Yorkist rule; etc), but he nevertheless continued the former narrative for the most part. I think this was because 1) it was already well-established and widespread by his father, and 2) downplaying Henry's authority would have served to emphasize Edward's own kingship, which was probably advantageous for a usurper whose deposed rival was still alive and out of reach. In some sense, the Lancastrians did the same thing with their own propaganda across the 1460s, which was clearly not as effective in terms of garnering support and is too long to get into right now, but was still very relevant when it came to emphasizing their own right to the throne while disparaging the Yorkists' claim.

[faaun]

oh my god ! haha . anyway a bit buzzed perhaps. anyway here's what happened on the date

[awkward-teabag]

Can't even mention that a store near me is clearly using abusing the TFW program because they refuse to pay little more than minimum wage in a high cost of living area (also you won't get benefits and you'll only be part-time) because the fascists and right-wingers will jump in to say it's about immigration and white replacement.

No, it's because rich white people want to hoard even more money and found an intentional loophole to both make more money (via paying employees less) and also have more power over employees, employees who may or may not know Canadian employment laws (or safety laws) and even if they do, don't have the ability or support to try to hold the company accountable.

You can absolutely criticize the federal government for keeping the loophole open but it predates Trudeau by decades and it was Harper who both expanded the program and added a way for companies to fast-track TFWs. It was also under Harper that companies started firing Canadians (or not hiring them) and then requesting permission to mass-hire TFWs instead.

But the way the right wing talks, you would think Trudeau started this whole thing and the poor multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies are being taken advantage of. Also that housing prices, lack of new developments, and zoning issues started with Trudeau and are the fault of mass-immigration he has a boner for instead of being an issue for decades and experts warning this would happen if governments didn't act ASAP.

Instead the neolibs and cons kept cutting back and kicking that can down the road, a can that started being kicked by Mulroney and the Conservative Party.

[kermitheefrog]

one of my friends from college is the best I love her but she's just so richbrained yet believes herself to not be.. like be real u went to a private school that was eight grand a year 😭 i can't deal with the things that come out of her mouth sometimes as much as i cherish her. this other lad in the year ahead was saying to her before that he wouldn't have been able to go to college if he didn't get a scholarship and she was like repeating this to me like WOW. 🤯 really makes you think 🤔 never met anyone like that 🫶 like WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNN

[glavilio]

me sprinkling in a little bit of romantic baggage into all my characters with a uniquely transgender flavor. no one is safe

[doppelnatur]

i think maybe we should start talking about victims and survivors as an oppressed group even outside of the context of other marginalizations. I'm thinking especially about victims of domestic violence, bullying and sexual abuse but also refugees and victims of natural disasters and other forms of ongoing stress/trauma, I just have less perspective on that and would welcome other perspectives here.

And yes, being part of a marginalized group, a) is in and of itself an ongoing stress, b) makes it more likely for you to become a victim of both interpersonal power imbalances as well as the effects of the global power imbalances as expressed as war and climate catastrophies, etc and c) makes it harder to receive help. I just think seeing those as intersections might be helpful? Conversations about domestic violence and sexual abuse are very commonly framed as conversations about gender and while I do think gender is an important factor in both, it is unhelpful to deny the doubt, downplaying and scrutiny all survivors regardless of gender face.

I think it would be helpful when building support networks to keep in mind the social bias against victims, whether those support networks help people escape a war zone or an abusive home. My impression is that a lot of the same social mechanisms that apply to marginalized groups, also apply to victims and survivors. It's the downplaying of the impact of the violence/disaster, the dehumanization, the speaking about you and not with you, the being robbed of your agency, there being "good" and "bad" victims, the contradictory and impossible standards you are held to, the way you're expected to bare yourself to display yourself and your wounds and be available for questioning...

I don't know maybe this is a useless concept or already really common framing but like I'd like to have a conversation about it?

[hussyknee]

Does Ireland count as Global South, then? /genuine question

No?? It's no longer subject to England and has a per capita GDP higher than the UK's.

Western Europe and North America are the primary geo-political beneficiaries of the current economic and political world order.

[thedreadvampy]

so MAYBE I spent 4 hours in IKEA on a whim instead of cleaning my flat BUT! BUT!!!!! I bought several forms of Tiny Shelves which as any fule kno makes everything instantly tidier.

added yet another tier to my stack of tea/coffee/cocoa/misc shelves to control The Collection. got trays under all my draining plant pots so I can actually water them. and I got a new monitor stand which is wide enough to fit both my A3 tablet and my A5 tablet underneath and has a shelf with enough space to trade out my work and home laptops easily. plus it's like 3in less deep than my old one, so that's freed up a bunch more desk space.

also of course vitally we did get the Small BLAHÅJ which was the whole point.

I also found a portable freestanding bag situation (toybox from the nursery section) which is both a) a way better option for storing glass recycling and hauling it down 3 flights of stairs than my previous solution "small cardboard box which holds 8 jars/bottles until one of us can be bothered to transfer them into a bag" and b) HAS A REALLY CUTE WHALE ON IT

plus we (Sam) got some new plant friends and the next size up of a lidded pyrex box I've always found super good for lasagne. and Sam got several things he's needed for a while (as well as a wee shark)

in summary did I spend too much money at IKEA and fritter away a full day walking around aimlessly for fun to the point of exhaustion? yes. was it extremely sensible and adult and I'm actually correct in all regards always? perhaps.

[kyouka-supremacy]

/

[ace-trainer-risu]

attempting to persuade myself that it's my civic duty as a participating member of capitalist society to buy tears of the kingdom

[justabunchofdragons]

hello o7

[wonder-worker]

that feeling when you want to write a long post ranting discussing something you feel especially strongly about but you're just. too Tired to actually sit down and do it