#logic of capitalism!

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[theconcealedweapon]

Rich People: "I want to price gouge and plan obsolescence without having to worry about competition. Government, enforce my patents."

Rich People: "I want firepower to uphold my enormous wealth. Government, hire police officers with taxpayer money to protect my property from thieves and trespassers."

Rich People: "I want a source of cheap labor. Government, enforce laws against victimless actions in order to put people in prison so I can exploit them as slaves, then brand them with criminal records so they'll take any low wage job that's offered to them in the future."

Rich People: "There are homeless people existing who are not generating profit for me. Government, hire police officers with taxpayer money to arrest them for loitering, and use taxpayer money to build hostile architecture."

Rich People: "Homeless people are eating food that my business discarded, which doesn't generate profit for me. Government, hire police officers with taxpayer money to guard the dumpster."

Rich People: "Marijuana is competition for me as a pharmaceutical CEO. Government, ban marijuana."

Rich People: "I build weapons. Government, create wars and buy my weapons with taxpayer money."

Poor People: "I can't afford what I need to live. Government, financially assist me, require my employer to pay me more, or limit rich people's ability to increase prices."

Rich People: "Stop relying on government for everything and taking people's freedom!"

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Anyone ever noticed how so many leftist memes lack...restraint?

The memer had to add the capitalist pig with a speech bubble, because apparently just mocking the "bad" decision wasn't enough.

They had to also imply that any Yank who disagrees is nothing but a brainwashed sheep.

Seems a biiit like projection.

Also, what does this have to do with credit vs. Cash?

[thelindenpapers]

The whole core of how capitalist-approved "economics" works involves "people constantly acting only in their own self-interest"...

Which makes their systems patently false from the start.

Because humans are actually humane.

We evolved to be.

Despite them creating police forces and militaries and committing massacres and genocides, and enclosing common lands and enforcing hard borders and false scarcities and unnecessary cut-throat competition throughout the world -- they can't QUITE seem to condition human beings into not being human...

No matter what they do, humans will still crave the act of saving each other from dangers, and the act of being saved by other humans.

No matter what they do, humans will still need connections to community and to the earth, in order to thrive.

No matter what they do, humans will still want peace and pleasure and rest; the ability to create and to collaborate and to explore; and being able to accomplish tasks that have actual impact and meaning for themselves and for their communities.

The only way that the rich can keep playing this pointless, dick-waving, worldwide, world-destroying monopoly game they got going; is if they abolish humans, and create an economy out of bots.

[infamouslydorky]

Fucks me up jobs expect workers to show up despite wild circumstances. I remember at a former job having to traverse sub zero temperatures just to walk to my job because they refused to close the building. I remember having to work front line in covid as an immune compromised individual with no vaccine produced yet and when concerns were expressed, my superiors responded with "when workers get infected, these parts of the building will be closed". God forbid you lose a family member. You're expected to show up anyway.

Today my boss told me to contact an office to confirm if a doctor has his papers in order. I say: they won't pick up, and he asks why, to which I responded: THEY WERE IN DIRECT LINE OF MILTON, YOU KNOW, THE DEVISTATING HURRICANE PART 2?? WHY WOULD THEY PICK UP???

[engagemythrusters]

makeup stores on coruscant have to be the size of an american outlet mall or something. the amount of species it has to offer product to is like. just the tip of the iceberg. beyond that it has to offer every sort of product every species needs ('skin' (or similar) care, 'hair' (or whatever) products, shadows and mascaras, perfumes, etc), it also has to have a variety within the products (like how humans need stuff for oily skin, stuff for dry skin, stuff for 'average skin') AND a variety of shades and tones within each variety (red foundations and pink foundations and mauve concealers and chartruese correctors). NOT TO MENTION ALL OF THE BRANDS.

you think a trip to your local makeup store takes forever? imagine going with your twi'lek, togruta, mikkian, etc girlfriends. you all need SUCH different products. it'd be a fucking DAY TRIP just to get EYESHADOW AND FOUNDATION.

[anglerflsh]

we jest we laugh but doesn't the thought that we aren't even free of nobility as a ruling class make your blood boil. Yes yes by the modes of the present the current ruling classes are the capitalists the hegemonies the monopolies but we can't even say we exchanged one for the other. They're literally still here. It's so inconcievable to me. What the hell

[capitalism-and-analytics]

[slutdge]

im trying real hard to not be an addict anymore but also maybe life should be easier so i dont have to be an addict in the first place

[thomasthequeer]

Feeling emotional about ofmd again pals ):

[starjunkyard]

"Im not even sure anymore if we get to choose who our friends are" There is a part of me that resents you for making me a worse person than i want to be but i am inexplicably uncontrollably drawn to you. You make me a worse person which is the last thing i want yet i want you in every way. If i could leave i would. Maybe i can but i dont want to. I have fun with you. You challenge me and you captivate me and you push me and pull and run circles around me and it makes me feel like a younger man. For the price of being a worse person i get to feel truly, wholly alive. You are the blood that runs through my veins; vital, inseparable. I was reborn when i met you and you are the womb that haunts me. You are the one person on planet earth who knows me. I wish i could leave, move on and be the man im supposed to be but my heart is tied to yours in a gordian knot. There is a part of my soul that rests in yours, magnetic. For as long as i love you i cannot be better than i am. But maybe thats something i can learn to live with. Gregory House-- I think you're worth it.

[theconcealedweapon]

There's a post going around Facebook of a liberal college woman who became a conservative after her conservative father told her that since she studies all the time and has a 4.0 gpa and her friend who parties all the time has a 2.0 gpa, she should give 1.0 to her friend so they can both have 3.0, and she thought that was unfair. Her father then said that she's right that it's unfair, and that it's a demonstration of what liberals want. He said that liberals want to take from those who work hard and give to those who don't so they can be equal, while conservatives want people to keep what they earn.

Are conservatives really that clueless? They're the ones supporting a system in which the working class work long hours and barely make enough to survive while their boss and landlord get to collect money for doing nothing.

A better comparison would be if she was expected to give 3.0 of her gpa to someone who does no work and just owns something that she used to study, so she is left with a 1.0 while the other person gets to have a 250.0 gpa after receiving a lion's share of other people's gpa also. Then when she complains, she's told to "just work harder" while the freeloader with the 250.0 gpa gets to strut around like they earned it. That's the economic system that conservatives want and that's what's happening now.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

The original twitter account (commiedamion) seems to have been suspended. I did find an archive.

[thelindenpapers]

Human beings survived not having tough hides, claws, and fangs in a dangerous world, because we evolved to be diverse, adaptable, innovative, and cooperative.

Our ancestors cared for the ill, the disabled, the injured, and the old. The fossil records show this.

Instead of reacting as herd animals do, running and abandoning our weakest folk; predators came to learn that, if you messed with one of us? You messed with ALL of us.

When we pooled our skills, knowledge, energy, tools, and care together, our societies thrived, and material conditions became better and better for everyone.

When humans extended their kindness to the land, living gently and sustainably, the landscapes around them became like beautiful gardens.

Accepting and investing in all kinds of diversity, is what made humans the dominant species on this planet.

DE-investing in these evolved, instinctual traits of sharing, care-networking, diversity, and staying adaptable and creative (as opposed to being cruel, greedy, rigid, conformist, and narrow-minded); is what is, not just stripping all that is humane from humanity, but destroying the planet.

[nando161mando]

Reminder that by its own logic, Israel is using civilians as human shield

[recovering-vamp]

Not a new take but !!! I am so !!! Ahhh!! Grumpy about how many shows there are where they’ve clearly been mindful to feature a diverse cast and handle those identities with care and thought and yet— not a single fat main character! Or just one straight sized not-thin character surrounded by thin characters! Who probably isn’t treated the same as their peers!!!

I completely agree that shows that aim for diversity and tackle subjects often not tackled are already bearing the burden of representing the underrepresented. And that representation is inherently fraught. It just makes my bones pop when a show is so clearly trying to consider the underrepresented but fat characters (especially the very fat) are absent.