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secretlilsis · 1 month

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She knew how big brother looked at her, and sometimes she watched him watch her. How his expression shifted from extremely gentle, in a way he might even deny - to doubtful, to repressing aggression - to a sort of intensity she couldnt quite explain. She wondered how shed define herself without him there to look at her.

She sometimes felt like she knew a version of him not even he himself knew and she would never tell him about it, he was to prideful of a person to ever be confronted with possible realities that would make him feel vulnerable. Like a knife pressed against a throat. Big brother could get scary when he felt threatened or backed into a corner. Big brother liked to feel in control, in control of her, in control of himself, in control of his enviroment. She wondered why that aroused her too. It made her shiver when she thought about the times he had felt scared of losing her, the way he had refused to let her go. The way he had claimed her back. Knife in hand and all. Fear. She had sensed his fear behind his actions. And it had aroused her. Not his fear per se, but the need behind it. Being wanted, being desired like that. Having someone like him all to herself, where hed do what she wanted, to make her happy. Yet he could switch open like a switchblade if he felt shed betray him or remove herself from him. Cold and hot shame washed over her recognising, that she knew all to well what about him was pathological and what wasnt, that its not that she didnt logically understand it - its that it aroused her and made her love him in spite of understanding it. She felt her hand between her thighs, playing with herself thinking of it. Thinking of his face. The expressions in his eyes when he was watching her. The tenderness, the desire, the obsession. The rage. The fear of losing her. She could read in his face like an open book, yet shed never claim to know everything about him. She wondered why when he sounded so apologetic about his obsession with her, that she could only play along with it and agree with him on telling him to keep that under control. She never told him it aroused her. She never could. She didnt know why. But she couldnt. When he was taking her again and she was all his again, he could feel herself truly belong to him. With every pore. Every hair. Every moan. He felt closer than close. Like he was owning her body with every thrust, every kiss, every movement.

And she wondered how these hands could be so gentle, so extremely gentle if he himself thought he was so incapable of just that. Again and again his hands spoke a language of tenderness and devotion and again and again his words denied being capable of it. She loved it. She loved how gentle he was. She desired it with a brutality. With a weight to it. Just sometimes she wanted him to do it more roughly, not so rough it would hurt her - she thought she didnt want him to be rough at all really, she just needed to feel him even closer. To feel she belonged to him even more. And that when she already felt she entirely belonged to him, sometimes she just wanted to feel it a little bit more than maybe was even possible. And then she suddenly felt this need to instruct him to be a little bit harder to her. But he never was.

It was a strange sort of arousal, where enough wasnt enough. Where he already filled her up so nicely, satisfied her so much and it still wasnt enough - because it was him and she always needed to feel him a little bit more, a little deeper, a little bit more intensely. Even when she already felt him as deeply as possible, already felt she belonged to him as much as she could, she wanted it a little bit more. The sex with him felt so perfect she couldve cried, he was so good at it. Yet she felt this strange greed for more every time they did it, to belong deeper, to feel him even more intensely - it felt like she had reached pleasure so high already, yet because she loved and wanted him so deeply... it wasnt enough. She needed more. It was frustrating even, to belong so deeply already, yet to simply feel it had to be more. Had to feel more intense. She had to be closer. To feel him better. Even better and better. Better. Deeper. Closer. She never verbalised this feeling. He would muster her and her take her expressions in, and see the satisfaction and pleasure in her face, but hed never understand what exactly she was thinking or how deeply she desired him herself. Yet he felt satisfied. He owned her. More than anything.

#bd/sm kink #bd/sm master #bd/sm community #bd/sm blog #bd/sm brat #bd/sm pet #bd/sm slave #bd/sm daddy #fauxc3st #fauxcest #sibcon #sibcest

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forgottenthreads · 6 months

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Alien visiting a human colony

Human: So this is our capital city. We're in our government centre.

Alien: it's fitting for your government centre to be such an important looking structure, by why are there other structures that seem just as grand

*the alien points across the city at other skyscrapers from the observation deck*

Human: we believe that government should serve the people, what you see are buildings other organisations, usually companies, that provide other services

Alien: how.... Unique, so what is that one.

Human: that is a shopping mall, it contains lots of small shops. Usually some places to eat like cafes and restaurants, it's a centre for a community of humans and a tourist attraction for many too.

Alien: I have seen some of this on other worlds but never to this extent.

Human: Really? So your people do not enjoy spending time together? Do not exchange things they have for things they want?

Alien: We do things together, we have things that pull us across the world to see them as with you, we have people who open their homes for anyone to visit and enable meeting new people. There are even people who build things they'd like to do and invite other people to join them in both the building and the experiences. But what would anyone have that they didn't need? And why would anyone want something they couldn't have?

*the human looks at him curiously*

Human: Our society is built on exchange, not all jobs are desirable and so to make them worth doing we add incentives, like money or vacations. Vacations are free time to do things that people want to do. Money is a universally agreed valuable resource that can be exchanged with anyone for any good or service.

*Alien looks aghast*

Human: it is how we've always done things, people work for money, have a certain amount of free time each week and each year to enjoy that money and pay for everything they want and some of what they need, the government takes a certain amount of money from each transaction to pay for the things that are necessary for a good society but would not otherwise be profitable to provide or fairly distributed without intervention.

Alien: People do not do things simply because it helps themselves and their community? You require incentives? ... Wow ... And what do you mean by not profitable or fair?

Human: Well it is prohibitively expensive for a company to build their own transportation network and it would lead to a lot of redundancy if they did, it is more cost effective for the government to provide one network linking every business and home together, so that's one thing we do. While for fairness we provide healthcare, we have experienced times where healthcare was driven by profit motive and it meant some people wasted medicines for little gain while others suffered without access.

Alien: You waste so much time and effort coercing people to act civilized and you enable so much misery. I bet there are people stuck doing things they don't want to do and don't enjoy simply because they need ... What was it again... Money? Right. It feels inefficient.

Human: I agree but in all honesty humans who act for the benefit of society without this are in the minority, they do exist, I feel like I do that though many would argue I'm.... Anyway we're in the minority.

Alien: I don't understand, if you're doing your best and others think you aren't why do you assume others aren't doing their best.

Human: one of the things about money is you can see who is doing things because they love to do their jobs and think it's good for other people and those for whom their primary interest is selfishness and greed

Alien: that's pathological.

Human: funnily enough in the history of modern medicine we pathologized being a good person instead.

Alien: I hope my people can help bring yours a new perspective

Human: I hope we are worth the effort.

#sci fi and fantasy #scifi #writing #humans are space orcs #ideas

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dailyanarchistposts · 5 months

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A.2.15 What about “human nature”?

Anarchists, far from ignoring “human nature,” have the only political theory that gives this concept deep thought and reflection. Too often, “human nature” is flung up as the last line of defence in an argument against anarchism, because it is thought to be beyond reply. This is not the case, however. First of all, human nature is a complex thing. If, by human nature, it is meant “what humans do,” it is obvious that human nature is contradictory — love and hate, compassion and heartlessness, peace and violence, and so on, have all been expressed by people and so are all products of “human nature.” Of course, what is considered “human nature” can change with changing social circumstances. For example, slavery was considered part of “human nature” and “normal” for thousands of years. Homosexuality was considered perfectly normal by the ancient Greeks yet thousands of years later the Christian church denounced it as unnatural. War only become part of “human nature” once states developed. Hence Chomsky:

“Individuals are certainly capable of evil … But individuals are capable of all sorts of things. Human nature has lots of ways of realising itself, humans have lots of capacities and options. Which ones reveal themselves depends to a large extent on the institutional structures. If we had institutions which permitted pathological killers free rein, they’d be running the place. The only way to survive would be to let those elements of your nature manifest themselves. “If we have institutions which make greed the sole property of human beings and encourage pure greed at the expense of other human emotions and commitments, we’re going to have a society based on greed, with all that follows. A different society might be organised in such a way that human feelings and emotions of other sorts, say, solidarity, support, sympathy become dominant. Then you’ll have different aspects of human nature and personality revealing themselves.” [Chronicles of Dissent, pp. 158]

Therefore, environment plays an important part in defining what “human nature” is, how it develops and what aspects of it are expressed. Indeed, one of the greatest myths about anarchism is the idea that we think human nature is inherently good (rather, we think it is inherently sociable). How it develops and expresses itself is dependent on the kind of society we live in and create. A hierarchical society will shape people in certain (negative) ways and produce a “human nature” radically different from a libertarian one. So “when we hear men [and women] saying that Anarchists imagine men [and women] much better than they really are, we merely wonder how intelligent people can repeat that nonsense. Do we not say continually that the only means of rendering men [and women] less rapacious and egotistic, less ambitious and less slavish at the same time, is to eliminate those conditions which favour the growth of egotism and rapacity, of slavishness and ambition?” [Peter Kropotkin, Act for Yourselves, p. 83]

As such, the use of “human nature” as an argument against anarchism is simply superficial and, ultimately, an evasion. It is an excuse not to think. “Every fool,” as Emma Goldman put it, “from king to policemen, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weakness of human nature. Yet how can any one speak of it to-day, with every soul in prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?” Change society, create a better social environment and then we can judge what is a product of our natures and what is the product of an authoritarian system. For this reason, anarchism “stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.” For ”[f]reedom, expansion, opportunity, and above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities.” [Red Emma Speaks, p. 73]

This does not mean that human beings are infinitely plastic, with each individual born a tabula rasa (blank slate) waiting to be formed by “society” (which in practice means those who run it). As Noam Chomsky argues, “I don’t think its possible to give a rational account of the concept of alienated labour on that assumption [that human nature is nothing but a historical product], nor is it possible to produce something like a moral justification for the commitment to some kind of social change, except on the basis of assumptions about human nature and how modifications in the structure of society will be better able to conform to some of the fundamental needs that are part of our essential nature.” [Language and Politics, p. 215] We do not wish to enter the debate about what human characteristics are and are not “innate.” All we will say is that human beings have an innate ability to think and learn — that much is obvious, we feel — and that humans are sociable creatures, needing the company of others to feel complete and to prosper. Moreover, they have the ability to recognise and oppose injustice and oppression (Bakunin rightly considered ”the power to think and the desire to rebel” as “precious faculties.” [God and the State, p. 9]).

These three features, we think, suggest the viability of an anarchist society. The innate ability to think for oneself automatically makes all forms of hierarchy illegitimate, and our need for social relationships implies that we can organise without the state. The deep unhappiness and alienation afflicting modern society reveals that the centralisation and authoritarianism of capitalism and the state are denying some innate needs within us. In fact, as mentioned earlier, for the great majority of its existence the human race has lived in anarchic communities, with little or no hierarchy. That modern society calls such people “savages” or “primitive” is pure arrogance. So who can tell whether anarchism is against “human nature”? Anarchists have accumulated much evidence to suggest that it may not be.

As for the charge the anarchists demand too much of “human nature,” it is often non anarchists who make the greatest claims on it. For “while our opponents seem to admit there is a kind of salt of the earth — the rulers, the employers, the leaders — who, happily enough, prevent those bad men — the ruled, the exploited, the led — from becoming still worse than they are” we anarchists “maintain that both rulers and ruled are spoiled by authority” and ”both exploiters and exploited are spoiled by exploitation.” So “there is [a] difference, and a very important one. We admit the imperfections of human nature, but we make no exception for the rulers. They make it, although sometimes unconsciously, and because we make no such exception, they say that we are dreamers.” [Peter Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 83] If human nature is so bad, then giving some people power over others and hoping this will lead to justice and freedom is hopelessly utopian.

Moreover, as noted, Anarchists argue that hierarchical organisations bring out the worse in human nature. Both the oppressor and the oppressed are negatively affected by the authoritarian relationships so produced. “It is a characteristic of privilege and of every kind of privilege,” argued Bakunin, “to kill the mind and heart of man … That is a social law which admits no exceptions … It is the law of equality and humanity.” [God and the State, p. 31] And while the privileged become corrupted by power, the powerless (in general) become servile in heart and mind (luckily the human spirit is such that there will always be rebels no matter the oppression for where there is oppression, there is resistance and, consequently, hope). As such, it seems strange for anarchists to hear non-anarchists justify hierarchy in terms of the (distorted) “human nature” it produces.

Sadly, too many have done precisely this. It continues to this day. For example, with the rise of “sociobiology,” some claim (with very little real evidence) that capitalism is a product of our “nature,” which is determined by our genes. These claims are simply a new variation of the “human nature” argument and have, unsurprisingly, been leapt upon by the powers that be. Considering the dearth of evidence, their support for this “new” doctrine must be purely the result of its utility to those in power — i.e. the fact that it is useful to have an “objective” and “scientific” basis to rationalise inequalities in wealth and power (for a discussion of this process see Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature by Steven Rose, R.C. Lewontin and Leon J. Kamin).

This is not to say that it does not hold a grain of truth. As scientist Stephen Jay Gould notes, “the range of our potential behaviour is circumscribed by our biology” and if this is what sociobiology means “by genetic control, then we can scarcely disagree.” However, this is not what is meant. Rather, it is a form of “biological determinism” that sociobiology argues for. Saying that there are specific genes for specific human traits says little for while ”[v]iolence, sexism, and general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of behaviours” so are “peacefulness, equality, and kindness.” And so “we may see their influence increase if we can create social structures that permit them to flourish.” That this may be the case can be seen from the works of sociobiologists themselves, who “acknowledge diversity” in human cultures while “often dismiss[ing] the uncomfortable ‘exceptions’ as temporary and unimportant aberrations.” This is surprising, for if you believe that “repeated, often genocidal warfare has shaped our genetic destiny, the existence of nonaggressive peoples is embarrassing.” [Ever Since Darwin, p. 252, p. 257 and p. 254]

Like the social Darwinism that preceded it, sociobiology proceeds by first projecting the dominant ideas of current society onto nature (often unconsciously, so that scientists mistakenly consider the ideas in question as both “normal” and “natural”). Bookchin refers to this as “the subtle projection of historically conditioned human values” onto nature rather than “scientific objectivity.” Then the theories of nature produced in this manner are transferred back onto society and history, being used to “prove” that the principles of capitalism (hierarchy, authority, competition, etc.) are eternal laws, which are then appealed to as a justification for the status quo! “What this procedure does accomplish,” notes Bookchin, “is reinforce human social hierarchies by justifying the command of men and women as innate features of the ‘natural order.’ Human domination is thereby transcribed into the genetic code as biologically immutable.” [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 95 and p. 92] Amazingly, there are many supposedly intelligent people who take this sleight-of-hand seriously.

This can be seen when “hierarchies” in nature are used to explain, and so justify, hierarchies in human societies. Such analogies are misleading for they forget the institutional nature of human life. As Murray Bookchin notes in his critique of sociobiology, a “weak, enfeebled, unnerved, and sick ape is hardly likely to become an ‘alpha’ male, much less retain this highly ephemeral ‘status.’ By contrast, the most physically and mentally pathological human rulers have exercised authority with devastating effect in the course of history.” This “expresses a power of hierarchical institutions over persons that is completely reversed in so-called ‘animal hierarchies’ where the absence of institutions is precisely the only intelligible way of talking about ‘alpha males’ or ‘queen bees.’” [“Sociobiology or Social Ecology”, Which way for the Ecology Movement?, p. 58] Thus what makes human society unique is conveniently ignored and the real sources of power in society are hidden under a genetic screen.

The sort of apologetics associated with appeals to “human nature” (or sociobiology at its worse) are natural, of course, because every ruling class needs to justify their right to rule. Hence they support doctrines that defined the latter in ways appearing to justify elite power — be it sociobiology, divine right, original sin, etc. Obviously, such doctrines have always been wrong … until now, of course, as it is obvious our current society truly conforms to “human nature” and it has been scientifically proven by our current scientific priesthood!

The arrogance of this claim is truly amazing. History hasn’t stopped. One thousand years from now, society will be completely different from what it is presently or from what anyone has imagined. No government in place at the moment will still be around, and the current economic system will not exist. The only thing that may remain the same is that people will still be claiming that their new society is the “One True System” that completely conforms to human nature, even though all past systems did not.

Of course, it does not cross the minds of supporters of capitalism that people from different cultures may draw different conclusions from the same facts — conclusions that may be more valid. Nor does it occur to capitalist apologists that the theories of the “objective” scientists may be framed in the context of the dominant ideas of the society they live in. It comes as no surprise to anarchists, however, that scientists working in Tsarist Russia developed a theory of evolution based on cooperation within species, quite unlike their counterparts in capitalist Britain, who developed a theory based on competitive struggle within and between species. That the latter theory reflected the dominant political and economic theories of British society (notably competitive individualism) is pure coincidence, of course.

Kropotkin’s classic work Mutual Aid, for example, was written in response to the obvious inaccuracies that British representatives of Darwinism had projected onto nature and human life. Building upon the mainstream Russian criticism of the British Darwinism of the time, Kropotkin showed (with substantial empirical evidence) that “mutual aid” within a group or species played as important a role as “mutual struggle” between individuals within those groups or species (see Stephan Jay Gould’s essay “Kropotkin was no Crackpot” in his book Bully for Brontosaurus for details and an evaluation). It was, he stressed, a “factor” in evolution along with competition, a factor which, in most circumstances, was far more important to survival. Thus co-operation is just as “natural” as competition so proving that “human nature” was not a barrier to anarchism as co-operation between members of a species can be the best pathway to advantage individuals.

To conclude. Anarchists argue that anarchy is not against “human nature” for two main reasons. Firstly, what is considered as being “human nature” is shaped by the society we live in and the relationships we create. This means a hierarchical society will encourage certain personality traits to dominate while an anarchist one would encourage others. As such, anarchists “do not so much rely on the fact that human nature will change as they do upon the theory that the same nature will act differently under different circumstances.” Secondly, change “seems to be one of the fundamental laws of existence” so “who can say that man [sic!] has reached the limits of his possibilities.” [George Barrett, Objections to Anarchism, pp. 360–1 and p. 360]

For useful discussions on anarchist ideas on human nature, both of which refute the idea that anarchists think human beings are naturally good, see Peter Marshall’s “Human nature and anarchism” [David Goodway (ed.), For Anarchism: History, Theory and Practice, pp. 127–149] and David Hartley’s “Communitarian Anarchism and Human Nature”. [Anarchist Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, Autumn 1995, pp. 145–164]

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hungerandthirst · 7 months

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in the wake of aaron bushnell’s self immolation, i’ve been reflecting on an article i read several years ago about wynn bruce, a man who set himself on fire on the steps of the Supreme Court building on earth day 2022 to bring attention to the climate crisis. this is an excerpt from “witness to a fire” by jay caspian kang, published in the new york times on april 28, 2022:

It’s hard to get comfortable with such violence. Wynn Bruce’s act of protest feels senseless because his death will not change the way legislators, corporations and individuals go about their polluting lives. There is a silent calculation among witnesses that accompanies any act of civil disobedience, even those we may agree with on principle: What is the point? This is standard fare for how many people think about protests, violent or not. We tend to pathologize the activists and imagine that they must be animated by the pettiness and greed that motivates us. In many cases, they are.

But self-immolation forces the witnesses, whether in person or through the news, to confront an intensity of conviction that goes well beyond what they may think is possible. In this way, self-immolators like Thich Quang Duc become almost inhuman, even holy. At the same time, the act establishes an entirely personal connection because the real question at hand isn’t really, “Why did he do that?” Rather, the self-immolator is asking you — with all the intimidation and self-righteousness a person can muster — “Why don’t you care even half as much as I do?”

I am still horrified by self-immolation, but I also believe that we should resist the urge to write it off as the last act of the mentally ill and the desperate. Nor should we simply frame each incidence with some made-up measure of how much effect it has had on the world. The discomfort we feel over this practice and our sincere desire to see it end should not preclude us from taking it seriously as an act of protest. We should hope this practice ends, but we also shouldn’t just look away.

Wynn Bruce lit himself on fire on Earth Day 2022 because he believed it might inspire people to work against climate change. There is not any more or less meaning we need to take away from it.

#aaron bushnell #wynn bruce #palestine

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urfavssins · 8 months

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THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Explanations are primarily taken from this Wikipedia article.

LUST

Lust is a psychological force producing intense desire for something, or circumstance while already having a significant amount of the desired object. It is usually thought of as intense or unbridled sexual desire, which may lead to fornication (including adultery), rape, bestiality, and other "sinful" and sexual acts; oftentimes, however, it can also mean other forms of unbridled desire, such as for money, or power.

GLUTTONY

Gluttony is the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of waste. One reason for its condemnation is that the gorging of the prosperous may leave the needy hungry. Gluttony is very commonly associated with food, though that isn't always the motivator behind it.

GREED

Greed (or avarice) is an insatiable desire for material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions) or social value, such as status, or power.

SLOTH

Sloth refers to a peculiar jumble of notions, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical states. It may be defined as absence of interest or habitual disinclination to exertion. Unlike the other seven deadly sins, which are sins of committing immorality, sloth is a sin of omitting responsibilities. It can be interpreted as making others do ones work despite being plenty capable of doing so, or plagiarizing work simply to avoid doing it.

WRATH

Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the neutral act of anger becomes the sin of wrath when it is directed against an innocent person, when it is unduly strong or long-lasting, or when it desires excessive punishment. People feel angry when they sense that they or someone they care about has been offended, when they are certain about the nature and cause of the angering event, when they are certain someone else is responsible, and when they feel that they can still influence the situation or cope with it.

ENVY

Envy is characterized by an insatiable desire like greed and lust, which occurs when a person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and wishes that the other lacked it. It can be described as a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else. Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness, bringing sorrow to committers of envy, while giving them the urge to inflict pain upon others. Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another's good fortune, stirred by "those who have what we ought to have".

PRIDE

Pride may be related to one's own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one's country. Oxford defines it as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance." Author Ichabod Spencer states that "spiritual pride is the worst kind of pride, if not worst snare of the devil. The heart is particularly deceitful on this one thing."

#setup post

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tomorrowusa · 3 months

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We need to smash the mythology of Republicans being fiscally responsible and good at economics. Shoveling vast amounts of money into the pockets of venal oligarchs who don't need it is not good for the country.

Former president Donald Trump approved almost twice as much borrowing as current President Joe Biden during his four years in office, according to the Committee for a Responsible Budget (CFRB). Trump, who presided over the federal government from 2016 to 2020, approved $8.4 trillion in new ten-year debt. But incumbent president Biden, who defeated Trump four years ago, has approved $4.3 trillion in new borrowing, said a new report by the committee. As for reducing the budget deficit, Trump cut it by $443 billion. The Biden administration has reduced it by $1.9 trillion. The U.S. is sitting on a total of $34.73 trillion in national debt, accrued over the country's history, according to government data.

I often say that Republicans create a mess when in office. And when they're voted out, the Republicans then try to make a campaign issue out of Democrats not cleaning up the Republican mess quickly enough.

During the Trump years, his tax cuts added $1.9 trillion in U.S. debt, while the budget passed in 2018 and 2019 generated borrowing of $2.1 trillion. Those two policy moves contributed some of the largest debt increases during Trump's tenure. Over the last three and a half years, under Biden, some of the largest contributors to the national debt included the appropriations bills of fiscal year 2022 and 2023 that generated $1.4 trillion of borrowing, while the American Rescue Plan Act was responsible for $2.1 trillion in debt, according to CFRB.

The Trump tax breaks for the filthy rich will automatically expire in a few years. That's why multi-billionaires are ignoring Trump's dictatorial behavior and criminality and are dropping HŪGE donations into Trump's campaign coffers so that he can renew their tax breaks if he gets back into office. Their rapacious greed is downright pathological.

When those tax breaks expire, provided Biden wins, the debt will then level off as it did during the Clinton administration after Democrats raised taxes on the filthy rich. Bill Clinton ended his presidency with a budget surplus.

As long as we're talking economics, a reminder that 90.9% of all recessions of the past 71 years began under Republicans.

... just sayin'.

#the national debt #committee for a responsible budget #republicans #donald trump #tax breaks for the filthy rich #rapacious greed by billionaires #most recessions happen under republicans #fiscal integrity by democrats #bill clinton balanced the budget #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who

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arosesstorm · 11 months

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BTS as the seven deadly sins ♛

Superbia (pride, hubris)

↳ Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". [1]Oxford defines it as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance." [2] Pride may be related to one's own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one's country. Richard Taylor defined pride as "the justified love of oneself",[3] as opposed to false pride or narcissism. Similarly, St. Augustine defined it as "the love of one's own excellence",[4] and Meher Baba called it "the specific feeling through which egoism manifests."

Acedia (sloth)

↳ Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholic teachings. It is the most difficult sin to define and credit as sin, since it refers to an assortment of ideas, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical states. [1] One definition is a habitual disinclination to exertion, or laziness. [2] Views concerning the virtue of work to support society and further God's plan suggest that through inactivity, one invites sin: "For Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." ("Against Idleness and Mischief" by Isaac Watts).

Avaritia (avarice/greed)

↳ Greed (or avarice) is an insatiable desire for material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions) or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as undesirable throughout known human history because it creates behavior-conflict between personal and social goals.

Invidia (envy)

↳ Envy is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. [1] Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another's good fortune, stirred by "those who have what we ought to have". [2] Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. [3]Recent research considered the conditions under which it occurs, how people deal with it, and whether it can inspire people to emulate those they envy.

Ira (wrath)

↳ Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.

Luxuria (lust, fornication)

↳ Lust is a psychological force producing intense desire for something, or circumstance while already having a significant amount of the desired object. Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality (see libido), money, or power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food (see gluttony) as distinct from the need for food or lust for redolence, when one is lusting for a particular smell that brings back memories. It is similar to but distinguished from passion, in that passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not.

Gula (gluttony)

↳ Gluttony (Latin: gula, derived from the Latin gluttire meaning "to gulp down or swallow") means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food or drink. In Christianity, it is considered a sin if the excessive desire for food causes it to be withheld from the needy. [1] Some Christian denominations consider gluttony one of the seven deadly sins.

source -> here

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mermaidsirennikita · 6 months

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Have you ever shared your thoughts on the romance in Killers of the Flower Moon?

There was a viral tweet a few days ago discussing how the emphasis on the marriage was borne out of Scorsese learning that Ernest insisted until his dying that that he really loved her, and Mollie’s real-life descendants also telling him they too believe that they were truly in love.

I went into a bit of a rabbit hole reading interviews with the cast and the IRL descendants and it was so disturbing and tragic (like Ernest really did learn to speak Osage, which was apparently highly unusual for white spouses). It’s also interesting to me that neither of Mollie’s sister had children with their white husbands, but she had three with Ernest. Like theirs was sincere relationship, and not one primarily because of mutual convenience. (Yet he also named his youngest daughter after her aunt, who he helped murder.)

I’ve seen pushback to the romantic relationship in the movie (“that’s not love,” “love isn’t abuse”), which is understandable, but also IMO a bit simple and naive/childish? I guess it kind of depends on whether one thinks love is inherently good, which I don’t think it is.

Anyway, I thought the film’s depiction of Mollie/Ernest was fascinating and devastating. I thought Lily and Leo had fantastic chemistry too.

I think Ernest did love her (or believed that he did), yet his love was worthless because it didn’t protect her or make him do the right thing. I thought Scorsese was basically asserting that love actually cannot “redeem” anyone or overcome evil/greed/bigotry.

I agree with your assessment on Scorsese's intent with that relationship, for sure, and I think that there is an understandable desire to categorize feelings and relationships into one thing or the other. When it comes from the Osage today (not that there's a universal "Osage take" on this movie, but I've seen a couple Osage critics go "that was not a relationship with any love in it"), I think that's a large part of healing, and I get where it comes from, and I respect it. I think that there is sometimes a need, not a universal need, when you have experienced trauma and abuse, to put certain feelings into boxes. It's self-protective. And I speak from experience, right? I've been processing emotional abuse from someone I loved for years, and it has only been fairly recently that I've been able to unravel the relationship in a way that isn't "this person must not have loved me because otherwise how could he treat me that way".

When it comes from random twitcrits, I think it's more indicative of not only that, but some larger issues that we're dealing with societally. I think we often try to "science-ify" or pathologize feelings in a way that we really can't. Because if we can say "this person did this thing, that means they're incapable of love", "abusive behavior of any kind means that person does not ever love you", "this disorder means this person can't love", it's easier to feel like we're capable of safeguarding ourselves from threats. If we can identify it, we can protect ourselves, and when someone does X, Y, and Z, we can identify them as a wholly malevolent force and predict their behavior and prescribe behaviors in terms of how to react to them.

Personally? I think it's a lot more complicated than that. In terms of Ernest and Mollie in particular, a lot of what people who have a more personal understanding of that situation seem to say, as you've pointed out, they appear to have been in love. Now, I don't think anyone can know what was going on for Mollie except Mollie, and Ernest obviously had reason to claim he was in love with her whether or not he was. Their descendants cannot look at it clear-eyed. All of his behavior could have many motivations.

The thing is, though, that it's absolutely possible to love someone be horrible to them. HORRIBLE. Because humans are capable of being many things at once, and compartmentalization is SO real. To me, it seems impossible to say that every abusive individual, even every monstrous individual, carried no love ever for people... even the people they hurt. And it also seems to assume a lot about what we can divine about people without living in their minds.

I also think that it challenges us on several fronts. First off--we can think someone is absolutely evil and that, in a world where the law can be trusted, would deserve a fate like death (to be clear: I'm anti-death penalty, but I understand the desire to punish certain people to that extent)... But how much does it shake our sense of morality and our justness when we admit that those people are capable of love? I mean, it doesn't for me, but I think it does for many. You want to be able to say "there is nothing good in this person" because it's just easier to accept. It is much, much more horrifying to think "this person is evil and also can love" versus "this person is evil". To be evil is human, but the way our societal morality is structured makes many feel otherwise; but nobody would argue that to love is human. So acknowledging that someone can love in any way humanizes these evil individuals in a way that is DEEPLY uncomfortable.

Because, as you said, it does separate this idea of love from goodness. Love is not inherently good, it's not inherently healthy, and it's not inherently ENOUGH. Someone can genuinely love you. But why does them loving you automatically mean that they love you MORE than their greed, MORE than their desire to destroy, MORE than their wrath? There's nothing in the bylaws of love that says so. That's just a romantic concept we've put onto all types of love, imo.

ALSO: perhaps scarier is the idea that someone can love and can also murder, and abuse, and do heinous things. So how can we identify a dangerous person? If someone like Ernest really loved Mollie, then someone like your dad could also be capable of murder. Someone like your husband could be capable of abuse. It's kind of a terrifying thing to think of, because I think that a lot of people like to live in this world of "Well, that would never happen to me/I would recognize the signs". Not always out of a sense of superiority, but because it feels SAFER and more comforting to think that you would pick up on these aberrant behaviors, desires, whatever.

I always think about what my mom used to say to me--"I am 99.9999999999% sure that X person would never do X thing, but you have to leave that sliver of space for them doing it". And you DO. Because if you don't, then if that thing happens, you may not catch it. That incredible, bulletproof confidence? Leads to scenarios in which you fail to recognize or even live in denial of what's going on around you.

So.... we're left to live with that sliver of ambiguity. And humans often do not like ambiguity. You live in the ambiguity that technically, someone can betray everything you think you know about them; and you live in the ambiguity that someone that hurt you horribly could also have had genuine love for you, and it wasn't healthy, and it wasn't good, and it wasn't ENOUGH, but it was there. I've lived in that second thing, and it is hard. And I've also been the person who would swear 100% that I could trust someone, only to be proven wrong.

This doesn't mean that you can't love and trust and believe in people. It just means that life is really about BELIEVING in people, and not ever knowing 100% where their mind is, what the future holds, what they'll do. I think that now more than ever, that makes people feel so unstable.

This is all very theoretical and long-winded, but yeah. I think that is what Scorsese was trying to get across. That love can exist in bad relationships and horrible people, and it's not always redemptive, and it's not always enough, and it cannot stand up to the kind of avarice and bigotry that we saw in Killers. And isn't that horrifying? Isn't it scary?

#killers of the flower moon #like regardless of the state of ernest and mollie's rl relationship which nobody can know but them #i think that message is incredibly true

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fleshwerks · 4 months

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been completely inactive for a month, told ya all that art in april flash-burned me out, so i've been making my way through my backlog of video games instead. i have, however, some ideas in mind for personal work (for which i need to hand-animate fire and i don't want to), some sketch pages for pathologic, and i've decided that yes, greed and compulsion won, as they most often do, and i will complete the d20 fhjy character set.

but the really, really important news with regards to this month of june is that i made pelmeni by hand just now and they turned out fucking great which is especially good news since living in belgium, you're only getting frozen pelmeni in specialty stores for nosebleed prices, so we've been sorely missing eating them here.

#if you don't get commissions you turn into cooking #wht else there is to do #päevik.txt

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sataniccapitalist · 2 months

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Joe Biden was discarded by the same billionaire class he assiduously served throughout his political career. Barely able to stumble his way through the words on a Teleprompter and not always cognizant of what is happening around him, his billionaire supporters pulled the plug. He was their creature – he has been in federal office for 47 years - from start to finish. He was used as a foil to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primaries and was anointed as the candidate in 2024 in a Soviet-style primary campaign. The billionaire class will now anoint someone else. Democratic Party voters are stage props in this political farce. Donald Trump, unlike Kamala Harris or any other apparatchik the billionaire class selects as a presidential candidate, has a genuine and committed base, however fascistic.

In Hitler and the Germans, the political philosopher Eric Vogelin dismisses the idea that Hitler — gifted in oratory and political opportunism but poorly educated and vulgar — mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiote, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist.

Biden and the Democratic Party are responsible for this zeitgeist. They orchestrated the deindustrialization of the United States, ensuring that 30 million workers lost their jobs in mass layoffs. As I write in America, The Farewell Tour, this assault on the working class created a crisis that forced the ruling elites to devise a new political paradigm. Trumpeted by a compliant media, this paradigm shifted its focus from the common good to race, crime and law and order. Biden was at the epicenter of this paradigm shift. Those undergoing profound economic and political change were told that their suffering stemmed not from rampant militarism and corporate greed but from a threat to national integrity. The old consensus that buttressed New Deal programs and the welfare state was attacked as enabling criminal Black youth, “welfare queens” and other alleged social parasites. This opened the door to a faux populism, begun by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, which supposedly championed family values, traditional morality, individual autonomy, law and order, the Christian faith and the return to a mythical past, at least for white Americans. The Democratic Party, especially under Bill Clinton and Biden, became largely indistinguishable from the establishment Republican Party to which it is now allied.

The Democratic Party refuses to accept its responsibility for the capture of democratic institutions by a rapacious oligarchy, the grotesque social inequality, the cruelty of predatory corporations and an unchecked militarism. The Democrats will anoint another amoral politician, probably Harris, to use as a mask for outsized corporate greed, the folly of endless war, the facilitation of genocide and the assault on our most basic civil liberties. The Democrats, tools of Wall Street, gave us Trump, and the 74 million people who voted for him in 2020. They look set to give us Trump again. God help us.

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