#they will blame all the problems of the industry on the mere existence of women and POCs and queer people as the cause

[a-room-of-my-own]

Have you read "An Apology to JK Rowling" by Petra Bueskens on Areo? I'm pathetically grateful to read something so clever and well articulated on the subject after the amount of abuse JK has been subjected to

It's a great piece so here it is, thank you anon!

 Rowling recently published an eminently reasonable, heartfelt treatise, outlining why it is important to preserve the category of woman. There’s only one thing wrong with it: it assumes a rational interlocutor. Rowling outlines why the biological and legal category of sex is important: in sports, in rape crisis shelters, in prisons, in toilets and changing rooms, for lesbians who want to sleep with natal women only and at the level of reality in general. Rowling marshals her experiences as an androgynous girl, as a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor and as someone familiar with the emotional perils of social media, in ways that have resonated with many women (and men). Her writing is clear, unpretentious, thoughtful, moving, vulnerable and honest. At no point does she use exclusionary or hostile language or say that trans women do not exist, have no right to exist or that she wants to rob them of their rights. Her position is that natal women exist and have a right to limit access to their political and personal spaces. Period.

Of course, to assume that her missive would be engaged with in the spirit in which it was intended, is to make the mistake of imagining that the identitarian left is broadly committed to secular, rational discourse. It is not. Its activist component has transmogrified into a religious movement, which brooks no opposition and no discussion. You must agree with every tenet or else you’re a racist, sexist, transphobic bigot, etc. Because its followers are fanatics, Rowling is being subjected to an extraordinary level of abuse. There seems to be no cognitive dissonance among those who accuse her of insensitivity and then proceed to call her a cunt, bitch or hag and insist that they want to assault and even kill her (see this compilation of tweets on Medium). She has been accused of ruining childhoods. Some even claim that the actor Daniel Radcliffe wrote the Harry Potter books—reality has become optional for some of these identitarians. Rowling’s age, menstrual status and vagina come in for particularly nasty attention and many trans women (or those masquerading as such) write of wanting to sexually assault her with lady cock, as a punishment for speaking out. I haven’t seen misogyny like this since Julia Gillard became our prime minister.

The Balkanisation of culture into silos of unreason means that the responses have not followed what might be loosely called the pre-digital rules of discourse. These rules assume that the purpose of public debate is to discern truth and that interlocutors on opposing sides—a reductionist bifurcation, because, in fact, there are many sides—engage in argument because they are interested in something higher than themselves: an ideal of truth, no matter how complicated, multifaceted and evolving. While in-group preferences and biases are inevitable, these exist within an overarching deliberative framework. This style of dialogue assumes the validity of a persuasive argument grounded in reason and evidence, even if—as Rowling does—it also utilises experience and feeling. By default, it assumes that civil conflict and opposition are essential devices in the pursuit of truth.

Three decades of postmodernism and ten years of Twitter have destroyed these conventions and, together with them, the shared norms by which we create and sustain social consensus. There is no grounding metanarrative, there are no binding norms of civil discourse in the digital age. Indeed, as Jaron Lanier shows with his bummer paradigm (Behaviours of Users Modified and Made into an Empire for Rent) social media is destroying the fabric of our personal and political lives (although, with a different business model and more robust regulation, it need not do so). The algorithm searching for and recording your every click, like and share, your every purchase, search term, conversation, movement, facial expression, social connection and preference rewards engagement above all else—which means that your feed—an aptly infantile descriptor—will quickly become full of the things you and others like you are most likely to be motivated to click, like and share. Outrage is a more effective mechanism through which to foster engagement than almost anything else. In Lanier’s terms, this produces a “menagerie of wraiths”—a bunch of digitised dementors: fake and bad actors, paid troll armies and dyspeptic bots—designed to confect mob outrage.

The norms of civil discourse are being eroded, as we increasingly inhabit individualised media ecosystems, designed to addict, distract, absorb, outrage, manipulate and incite us. These internecine culture wars damage us all. As Lanier notes, social media is biased “not towards the left or right but downwards.” As a result, we are witnessing a catastrophic decline in the standards of our democratic institutions and discourse. Nowhere is this more evident than in the contemporary culture wars around the trans question, where confected outrage is the norm.

This is why the furore over Rowling’s blog post misses the point: whether we agree with her or not, the problem is the collapse of our capacity to disagree constructively. If you deal primarily in subjective experience and impulse-driven reaction, under the assumption that you occupy the undisputed moral high ground, and you’ve been incited by fake news and want to signal your allegiances to your social media friends, then you can’t engage in rational discussion with your opponent. Your stock in trade will be unsubstantiated accusations and social shaming.

In this discombobulating universe, sex-based rights are turned into insults against trans people. Gender-critical feminists are recast as immoral bigots, engaged in deliberately hurtful, even life-threatening, speech. Rowling is not who we thought she was, her ex-fans wail, her characters and plots conceal hidden reservoirs of homophobia and bigotry. A few grandstanders attempt to distinguish themselves by saying that they have always been able to smell a rat—no, not Scabbers—and therefore hated the books from the outset. Nowhere amid this morass of moral grandstanding and outrage is there any serious engagement with her ideas.

Those of us on the left—and left-wing feminists in particular—who find trans ideology fraught, for all the reasons Rowling outlines, are a very small group. While Rowling is clearly privileged, she has also become the figurehead of a rapidly dwindling and increasingly vilified group of feminists, pejoratively labelled terfs, who want to preserve women’s sex-based rights and spaces. Although our arguments align with centrist, conservative and common sense positions, ours is not the prevailing view in academia, public service or the media, arts and culture industries, where we are most likely to be located (when we are not at home with our children). In most of these workplaces, a sex-based rights position is defined a priori as bigoted, indeed as hate speech. It can get us fired, attacked, socially ostracised and even assaulted.

As leftist thinkers who believe in freedom of speech and thought, who find creeping ideological and bureaucratic control alarming, we are horrified by these increasingly vicious denunciations by the left. The centre right and libertarians—the neo-cons, post-liberals and the IDW—are invariably smug about how funny it is to watch the left eat itself. But it’s true: some progressive circles are now defined by a call out/cancel culture to rival that of the most repressive of totalitarian states. Historically, it was progressives who fought against limits on freedom of speech and action. But the digital–identitarian left split off from the old print-based left some time ago, and has become its own beast. A contingent of us are deeply critical of these new directions.

Only a few on the left have had the gumption to speak up for us. Few have even defended our right to express our opinions. Those who have spoken out include former media darlings Germaine Greer and Michael Leunig. Many reader comments on left-leaning news sites claim that Rowling is to blame for the ill treatment she is suffering. Rowling can bask in the consequences of her free speech, they claim, as if having a different opinion from the woke majority means that she is no longer entitled to respect, and that any and all abuse is warranted—or, at least, to be expected. Where is the outrage on her behalf? Where are the writers, film makers, actors and artists defending her right to speak her mind?

Of course, the actors from the Harry Potter films are under no obligation to agree with JK Rowling just because she made them famous. They don’t owe her their ideological fealty: but they owe her better forms of disagreement. When Daniel Radcliffe repeats the nonsensical chant trans women are women, he’s not developing an argument, he’s reciting a mantra. When he invokes experts, who supposedly know more about the subject than Rowling, he betrays his ignorance of how contested the topic of transgender medicine actually is: for example, within endocrinology, paediatrics, psychiatry, sociology, and psychology (the controversies within the latter discipline have been demonstrated by the numerous recent resignations from the prestigious Tavistock and Portman gender identity clinic). The experts are a long way from consensus in what remains a politically fraught field.

Trans women are women is not an engaged reply. It is a mere arrangement of words, which presupposes a faith that cannot be questioned. To question it, we are told, causes harm—an assertion that transforms discussion into a thought crime. If questioning this orthodoxy is tantamount to abuse, then feminists and other dissenters have been gaslit out of the discussion before they can even enter it. This is especially pernicious because feminists in the west have been fighting patriarchy for several hundred years and we do not intend our cause to be derailed at the eleventh hour by an infinitesimal number of natal males, who have decided that they are women. Now, we are told, trans women are women, but natal females are menstruators. I can’t imagine what the suffragists would have made of this patently absurd turn of events.

There has been a cacophony of apologies to the trans community for Rowling’s apparently tendentious and hate-filled words. But no one has paused to apologise to Rowling for the torrent of abuse she has suffered and for being mischaracterised so profoundly.

So, I’m sorry, JK Rowling. I’m sorry that you will not receive the respectful disagreement you deserve: disagreement with your ideas not your person, disagreement with your politics, rather than accusations of wrongspeak. I’m sorry that schools, publishing staff and fan clubs are now cancelling you. And I’m sorry that you will be punished—because cancel culture is all about punishment. I’m sorry that you are being burned at the digital stake for expressing an opinion that goes against the grain.

But remember this, JK—however counterintuitive this may seem to progressives, whose natural home is on the fringe—most people are looking on incredulously at the disconnect between culture and reality. Despite raucous protestations to the contrary, you are on the right side of history—not just because of the points you make, but because of how you make them.

[kemifatoba]

C/O Berlin Magazine | It’s a space for everyone, and everyone can come in — Thoughts for the future

“I cringe when I hear words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion.” To quote the civil rights activist, philosopher, and writer Angela Davis, “diversity” and “inclusion” are terms that you, dear reader, might have also stumbled across in recent months, whether you wanted to or not. Inspired by global Black Lives Matter protests, mainstream media, corporations, and other institutions finally realized – in some cases as it seems overnight – that racism is also an intractable problem in Germany. Unfortunately, we need more than just hollow words and empty promises to solve this problem. You might be thinking to yourself: “But didn’t people take to the streets or write opinion pieces in newspapers to protest structural racism? And didn’t major institutions promise to offer diversity and inclusion workshops in discussion after discussion on television?” Perhaps, but don’t be fooled. Instead of critically questioning the role that white decision-makers play in perpetuating systemic racism, “society” was blamed. Over and over again, Black* people were asked to answer if they had really experienced racism through scrutiny of their real-life stories, while predominantly white “experts” were invited onto talk shows to discuss the so-called “racism debate”. Profound, structural changes are still lacking, at least as of the time this text goes to print. 

Presence equals power. This brings us to the current moment where you are reading these words about British photographer Nadine Ijewere’s solo show at C/O Berlin. Nadine Ijewere is the first Black woman to be given a space that has previously been occupied almost exclusively by white men. As such, this exhibition is significant not only for Black photographers, but for everyone more used to being treated as the object than the artist or curator in spaces like this where many people don’t feel welcome or simply don’t exist. As trivial as it may sound, visibility comes from being able to hang pictures on a wall—or write these lines.

Joy as an act of resistance. Nadine Ijewere belongs to a generation of artists and creatives who have realized that there are more options than simply following the traditional path. Knowing that society has long since changed—even if many gatekeepers in fashion, art, and the media still cling to the status quo—this DIY generation is creating its own platforms to elevate their own role models with an army of loyal followers. In their work, representatives of this generation create worlds that rarely center Eurocentric beauty norms. The same goes for this young British artist, whose work shows people in all their beauty and uniqueness. Her photographs regularly appear on the pages of British, American and Italian Vogue, i-D, or Garage, and she has collaborated with brands such as Nina Ricci and Stella McCartney. Ijewere proves that beauty is multifaceted and that fashion is fun and for everyone. 

More than a seat at the table. When artists like Ijewere make it to the top, it’s not because of nepotism, tokenism, or diversity as a trend, but despite all the obstacles that have been put in their way. And instead of assimilating after being accepted by the old guard, they continue to write their own rules. In Ijewere’s case, this means not only working with diverse models and teams, but also passing her knowledge on as a mentor to keep the proverbial door open. She’s less driven by the desire to stand out from the mainstream than she is to give back by inspiring younger generations, who are able to see themselves in magazines. “Within the time I have, I’ll use every opportunity I get and every space I can get into to expand the horizon of others.”

Representation matters. Celebrating Black people and people of color in a traditionally white space was also the goal of “Visibility is key – #RepresentationMatters,” a watershed moment for the German lifestyle magazine industry when it launched on vogue.de in spring 2019. The goal was to take first steps toward a forward-thinking future where inclusion and diversity would no longer be mere buzzwords, but lived practices. Part of that effort meant ensuring representation in front of as well as behind the camera. The results weren’t perfect and they might not have led to social change, but we proved that there isn’t a lack of creative talent among Black and Brown people in Germany. If anything, we proved that these talents are often denied the space to develop their full potential. 

Ideas for the future. As you see, dear reader, it takes teamwork to bring about long-term change, and for the first time the doors are open a bit. Nadine Ijewere's exhibition shows this, as does being able to write these very words in the C/O Berlin Newspaper. In the statements below, we asked German and international artists and creatives to envision a future where representation and inclusion are lived practices instead of rare exceptions. The results are ideas for a future that is reachable—as long as we all keep working towards it every day. Together.

Nadine Ijewere, artist Art is about art. It’s not about you personally. That’s why artists need to be seen as artists. We all get stereotyped and put into the same box—but we have our own identity. We are put into the same space just because we are Black, but we are all very different people.

Edward Enninful, OBE, Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue Nadine is one of the leading fashion photographers of her generation. She’s not only inherently British in her work, she’s also Black British. She really understands the complex mix of culture, fashion, beauty, and the inner working of a woman, so when you see her images, it’s never just a photograph. There’s also a story and a narrative behind it.

Benjamin Alexander Huseby & Serhat Işık, designers for the label GmbH Our work has always been about wanting to show our community and culture to tell our stories as authentically as we can. It was never about “diversity”, but about being seen. We want to create a world where not only exceptional Black and Brown talents no longer have to be truly exceptional to get recognition for their work, a world where we no longer are the only non-white person in the room because we built the motherfucking house ourselves.

Mohamed Amjahid, freelance journalist and author, whose book Der weiße Fleck will be published by Piper Verlag on March 1, 2021. It's time that Black women become bosses. Gay Arabs should get to call the shots. Refugees belong on the executive boards of big corporations. Children of so-called “guest workers” should move into management positions too. People with disabilities should not just have a say, they should make the decisions. Vulnerable groups deserve to put their talents and ideas to work in the service of the whole society. Not every person of color is automatically a good leader by virtue of their background, but all-white, cis-male executive boards are certainly incapable of making decisions that are right for everyone. That’s why we need more representation at the very top, where the decisions are made.

Melisa Karakuş, founder of renk., the first German-Turkish magazine For a better future, I demand that we educate our children to be anti-racist and to resist when others or when they themselves are subjected to racism. I demand that discrimination is understood through the lens of intersectionality and solidarity! I demand that even those who are not affected by racism stand up against it! This fight is not one that we as Black people and people of color fight alone—for a better future, we all have to work together. 

Tarik Tesfu, host of shows including the NDR talk show deep und deutlich When I look in the mirror, I see someone who grew up in the Ruhr region and loves currywurst with French fries as much as Whitney Houston. I see a person who has his pros and cons and who is so much more than his skin color. I see a subject. But the German media and cultural system seem to see it differently because far too often, Black people are degraded and made into objects for the reproduction of racist bullshit. I'm tired of explaining racism to Annette and Thomas because I really have better things to do (for example, my job). So get out of my light and let me shine.

Ronan Mckenzie, photographer The future of our industry needs to be one with more consideration for those that are within it. One that isn’t shrouded in burnout and the stresses of late payments, and one that doesn’t make anyone question whether they have been booked for the quality of their work or to be tokenized for the color of their skin. The future of our industry needs to go beyond the performative Instagram posts and mean-nothing awards, to truly sharing resources and lifting up one another. Our industry needs to put its money where its mouth is when words like “support”, “community” or “diversity” slip out, instead of using buzzwords that create an illusion of championing us. How there can be so much money in this industry yet so many struggle to keep up with their rent, feed themselves, or just rest without worrying about money is truly a travesty. If this industry is to survive then we who make it what it is need to be able to thrive.

Ferda Ataman, journalist and chair of Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen A recent survey of the country's most important editors-in-chief revealed that many of them think diversity is good, but they don't want to do anything about it. This is based on the assumption that everyone good will succeed. Unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s not just a person’s qualifications that are decisive, but other criteria as well, such as similarity and habit (“XY fits in with us”). It's high time that all of us—everywhere—demand a serious commitment to openness and diversity. Something is seriously wrong in pure white spaces that can’t be explained by people’s professional qualifications alone. Or to put it differently: a good diversity strategy always has an anti-racist effect.

Nana Addison, founder of CURL CON and CURL Agency Being sustainable and inclusive means thinking about all skin tones, all hair textures, and all body shapes—in the beauty industry, in marketing communications, as well as in the media landscape. These three industries work hand in hand in shaping people’s perceptions of themselves and others. It’s important to take responsibility and be proactive and progressive to ensure inclusivity.

Dogukan Nesanir, stylist  The current system is not designed to help minorities. By giving advantages to certain people and groups, it automatically deprives others of the chance to attain certain positions in the first place. That's why I don't even ask myself the question "What if?" anymore. My work is not about advancing a fake worldview, but about highlighting all the real in the good and the bad. I strongly believe that if some powerful gatekeepers gave in, if representation and diversity happened behind the scenes and we had the chance to show what the world REALLY looks like, we wouldn't be having these discussions at all. I don't just want an invitation to the table, I want to own the table and change things.

Arpana Aischa Berndt & Raquel Dukpa, editors of the catalog I See You – Thoughts on the Film “Futur drei” In the German film and television industry, production teams and casting directors are increasingly looking for a “diverse” cast. Casting calls are almost exclusively formulated by white people who profit from telling stories of people of color and Black people by using them, but without changing their own structures in the process. Application requirements and selection processes in film schools even shut out marginalized people by denying them the opportunities that come with being in these institutions. People of color and migrants as well as Black, indigenous, Jewish, queer, and disabled people can all tell stories, too. Production companies need to understand that expertise doesn’t necessarily come with a film degree.

Vanessa Vu & Minh Thu Tran, hosts of the podcast Rice and Shine  It may be convenient to ignore entire groups, but we are and have been so much more for a very long time. We contribute to culture by making films or plays and bring new perspectives to science, politics, and journalism. We’re Olympic athletes, curators, artists, singers, dancers, and inventors. We dazzle and shine despite not always being seen. Because we have each other and we’ve created opportunities to do the things we love. We’ve created platforms for each other and built communities. Slowly but surely we are finally getting applause and recognition for the fact that we exist. That's nice. But what we really need is not just the opportunity to exist, but the opportunity to continue to grow and to stop basing our work primarily on self-exploitation. We need security, reliability, and money. That's the hard currency of recognition. That would mean being truly seen.

*Black is a political self-designation and is capitalized to indicate that being Black is about connectedness due to shared experiences of racism.

Written by: Alexandra Bondi de Antoni & Kemi Fatoba C/O Berlin Magazine April 2021

[comrade-meow]

Prostitution or sex work? Language matters

This article is by Laura Biggs, from the Marxist-Feminist blog On the Woman Question.

The term ‘sex work’ has come to replace the word ‘prostitution’ in contemporary discussions on the subject. This is not accidental. The phrase ‘sex work’ has been adopted by liberal feminists and powerful lobbyists in a deliberate attempt to steer the narrative on prostitution.

Smoke and Mirrors

Superficially, the term ‘sex work’ is intended to make prostitution sound more palatable. It is used to remove the negative connotations of the sex industry and those who work within it. However, sanitising the horror of prostitution with such benign terms is a monumental disservice to the tens of millions of prostituted women around the world. Their experiences cannot be celebrated as ‘work’. The vast majority of their experiences are dirty and degrading. What a handful of relatively privileged Western women working in the sex trade may deem to be ‘work’ is perceived as humiliation and degradation by millions of others. Some argue that the term ‘sex work’ removes the stigma and vitriol directed at prostituted women, but this fails to address the problem. Prostituted women are hurt and violated by buyers because the sex trade enables abusive men — not because of the language used to discuss it. Suggesting that the word ‘prostitution’ is to blame for the suffering of prostituted women shifts blame away from the perpetrators of male violence and overlooks the institutional systems which allow it to flourish. It is absolutely vital that we do talk about the ugly reality of prostitution, and to do so we must begin by naming the issue in no uncertain terms: prostitution.

Reinventing prostitution as ‘sex work’ also masks the deeply misogynistic nature of the sex trade. The word ‘prostitute’ is one which is heavily gendered; it connotes women. The Oxford English Dictionary acknowledges this in their definition of the word: A person, in particular a woman, who engages in sexual activity for payment. So gendered is the word, in fact, that when referring to men in the sex industry, the descriptor ‘male’ is added in order to make the distinction (male prostitute). This is not an outdated, sexist misconception but an accurate reflection of the gender balance within sex trade. The vast majority of those who are prostituted are women and girls while the vast majority of buyers and pimps are men. Obfuscating the gendered nature of prostitution by rebranding it as ‘sex work’ erases the millennia of misogynistic oppression inherent in the sex trade. It is likely that commercial prostitution (separate and distinct from temple prostitution) is derived from ancient slavery. The physicality of male slaves meant that they were often utilised for manual labour whilst female slaves were more likely to be reserved for domestic or entertainment purposes. In many Ancient societies, women could not own property and therefore slave masters were predominantly male. As a result, female slaves were often used for the sexual entertainment of their male owner. Slave owners frequently rented out their female slaves as prostitutes and even set up commercial brothels. Prostitution, born out of sexual slavery, has always disproportionately affected women belonging to lower socioeconomic classes. It is crucial to acknowledge the origin and history of prostitution in order to understand that it is not ‘work like any other’ but an industry built upon the oppression of poor women.

A Wide Umbrella

‘Sex work’ is a vague term which refers to people selling their own sexual labour or performance. This can therefore include any number of professions such as webcamming, stripping, hostessing, escorting etc. Whilst any profession which exists solely to sexualise women is objectively antifeminist, it is important that we acknowledge that prostitution is distinct from these other milder forms of objectification. Clearly, the experiences of a student flirting with strangers via webcam to top up their student loan differs greatly from those of a vulnerable sixteen year old girl, trafficked from Romania, walking the streets. The job description of a prostitute lists acts and risks which are not common to other jobs: risk of STIs; unwanted pregnancy; unprotected handling of bodily fluids; degrading, painful and even tortuous sex; vaginal and anal tears; high risk of PTSD — not to mention the significantly increased risk of rape, assault and murder. Even within the sex industry, the experiences of prostituted women are uniquely harrowing and so it is essential that we prioritise these women in legislation on prostitution reform. By grouping all sex-related professions under the wide umbrella of ‘sex work’, those in less dangerous and degrading jobs have now been given the authority to speak on behalf of prostituted women, thus silencing the most oppressed voices within the sex industry. Individuals whose experiences have little in common with those of prostitutes are spearheading movements whose aims will have a direct and adverse effect upon the safety and wellbeing of these vulnerable women. The wide scope of the term ‘sex work’ allows wealthy lobbyists to use compliant liberal women as the mouthpiece for their damaging narrative whilst simultaneously pushing the experiences of those who are worst affected by the sex trade into the background.

In some cases, the term ‘sex workers’ is so broad that it includes pimps. Borrowing the language of the labour movement, pro-decriminalisation lobbies brand themselves as ‘collectives’ or ‘unions’ and demand decriminalisation under the pretence of ‘worker’s rights’. Douglas Fox, of the International Union of Sex Workers, describes himself as a sex worker yet is the co-owner of the one of the largest escort agencies in the country. The agency’s website argues that pimps are ‘sex workers’ and Fox also shockingly states that ‘the fact that paedophiles produce and distribute and earn money from selling sex may make them sex workers’. Similarly, the Sex Workers’ Outreach Project USA was founded by Robyn Few, a self-proclaimed sex worker who has a conviction for conspiracy to promote interstate prostitution (pimping). Unionising prostitution legitimises an industry which causes untold suffering to millions of women around the world. It is absurd to allow pimps to join these unions alongside those who they abuse and exploit. No amount of ‘worker’s rights’ will ever make prostitution a safe or humane profession. An inherently unethical system cannot be fixed through reform. A radical solution is needed: abolition.

An Appeal to Socialists

Describing prostitution as ‘work’ and its victims as ‘workers’ is a cheap and transparent appeal to socialists. Using Marxist jargon to describe prostitution as ‘work like any other’ is an insult to history’s great communists who condemned prostitution as counter-revolutionary. Under Mao, whose policy of criminalising pimps was implemented as soon as he took power, prostitution was virtually nonexistent. Engels himself asserted that communism would ‘transform the relations between sexes into entirely personal relations’. Therefore, any economic relationship between man and woman, particularly the grossly exploitative one between prostituted women and buyers, is inherently anti-communist. Lenin, too, commented that ‘so long as wage-slavery exists, inevitably prostitution too will exist’, demonstrating that he also believed prostitution to be inextricably bound to capitalist exploitation.

However, a significant portion of the woke left insist upon misinterpreting and misapplying Marxist theory to legitimise the continuance of the sex trade. They claim that by declaring prostitution to be ‘a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer’, Marx understood the position of prostituted women to be identical to that of all exploited workers. However, this wilfully overlooks Marx’s use of the word ‘specific’. In reality, Marx is suggesting that, whilst prostitution falls under the general banner of exploitation, its reliance on the oppression of women differentiates it from the ‘general prostitution of the labourer’ and makes it ‘specific’ to the female condition. If capitalist exploitation were removed, labour would continue to be necessary for the subsistence of any given society. In contrast, prostitution without capitalist exploitation ceases to exist; sex, devoid of economic coercion, would become a purely interpersonal relationship. In Private Property and Communism, Marx goes on to say that communism aims ‘to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production’. Pro-prostitution arguments which characterise prostitution as ‘work’ inherently reinforce the perception of female bodies as machines which produce a commodity (sex) for male consumption. The objectification of female bodies, whether exploitative or not, is plainly incorrect and so cannot be supported by any Marxist movement.

There’s More to it Than Money

Framing prostitution as ‘work’ deliberately reduces it to a purely economic analysis. Any analysis devoid of historical materialism is wholly inadequate and will invariably fail to offer a comprehensive examination of the issue. It is vital to acknowledge the social factors which lead women into prostitution: low self esteem, childhood sexual trauma, incest etc. It is unsurprising that some of these vulnerable women embrace the ‘sex work is empowering’ narrative. Language which clouds the abject reality of their situation is undoubtedly appealing and so it is all the more immoral and manipulative for pimps, traffickers and lobbyists to push this sinister doublespeak. The insistent claim from liberal feminists that prostitution is merely ‘sex work’ does not recognise the existence of the social factors which predispose women to sell sex and so naturally prevents positive change to combat them. Prostitution, therefore, is much more than capitalist wage slavery and so we must reject any attempts to render it mere ‘work’.

[hum02poverty]

The Faces of Poverty in the Philippines

         One of the several challenges that the country faces up until this day is poverty. Indeed, the Philippines is currently considered a developing country and yet the economy of the country is relatively weak and has a slow economic growth compared to the other developing countries in the world. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (2019), the poverty incidence among the Philippines’ population or the proportion of the poor Filipinos whose per capita income is not enough to fulfill their basic needs was estimated to be 16.6 percent for the year 2018. Although the poverty rate has decreased from 23.3 percent last 2015, it is still alarming that there are many Filipinos who remain to live in extreme poverty while the country continues to increase in population. Poverty is certainly a huge problem of the society; everyone is affected, regardless of age and gender. However, the youth are the ones who are greatly affected, if an innocent child is born poor, his/her future will probably not be secured and has to work hard growing up to earn a living. Nevertheless, the real question is: what is the truth behind poverty? What are the main and root causes of it? The application of the theories of poverty includes capitalism, politics, and inequality in the Philippines’ society.

Quite possibly the biggest culprit among the causes of poverty is the system itself, specifically this Capitalist system that the society has grown far of. What exactly is Capitalism? Several people tend to be unaware of its meaning despite living in a society which is one. It is the economic and political system wherein industries are owned by private owners or institutions rather than being owned by the state. Furthermore, it is built around the concept of the free market, competition, voluntary labor and the idea of being paid equivalent to what and how people have worked.  A study by the Asian Development Bank in 2009 has stated the most common reasons, a few being: low to moderate economic growth for the past 40 years, low growth elasticity of poverty reduction, weakness in employment generation and the quality of jobs generated, failure to fully develop the agriculture sector, high inflation during crisis periods, high levels of population growth and high and persistent levels of inequality among many others. If these reasons will boil into one thing, it will only root out Capitalism.

A talk conducted by Prager University stated that the only way for the poor to rise from poverty is through the Capitalist system as it also revolves around the concept of accumulating profit and capital. They elaborate further stating that Capitalism promotes Economic Democracy, allowing the poor to have better wages and job opportunities as opposed to Socialism which will only lead to “Economic dictatorship of the elite”. The talk had a completely logical and historical evidence to support it but the practice was problematic. This is due to the fact that the current social system, apart from Capitalism has very prominent and severe cases of inequality and the sad reality is many cases are inevitable. Many private owners would cut corners in cost to avoid financial conflicts in the future thus leading to the unfair wages and compensation to their less-fortunate employees. This may seem like an act of greed, however if we look at it from a different perspective it is not as simple as it sounds as the system proves that even the slightest of fluctuation in profit can lead to economic disaster due to the constantly changing competition which will result in the fall of the employer but also their employees whom they pay. That is not to say that all cases are like that, the pride and reputation of many of those in the upper-class are also at stake and many are unwilling to set those aside for the greater good of their employees and subordinates. Some may be saying “What about those rags to riches stories we always hear?” which is a good question. Those people are simply benefactors of circumstance as they had the ample amount of qualifications alongside the opportunities. However, not everyone, in fact rarely anyone, is as lucky as those people as the same study by ADB (2009) quotes “Economic growth did not translate into poverty reduction in recent years”. Despite Capitalism being the only way for the poor to rise from poverty, the greed and lack of tact of many of those higher-up are holding them back from doing so.

According to the Asian Development Bank (2009), one of the major causes of poverty is having a large amount of inequality. It includes economic inequality that leads to social inequalities such as discrimination in gender or racism which gives an unequal opportunities to a society  with various social statuses. The victims of these inequalities are people who doesn’t get enough resources like education, work opportunities, and privilege that is needed within a family against poverty. The United Nations Social Policy and Development Division (2009) identifies “inequalities in income distribution and access to productive resources, basic social services, opportunities” and more as a cause for poverty. Clusters like women, religious minorities, and racial minorities can be considered as the most vulnerable in this state. From time to time, it is difficult to distinct a social inequality and cannot be obvious for some since voices from people who are in need are left unheard and left out from any discourse that is of essence.

In the Philippines, a quarter of the country’s population is under the poverty line. According to the ASEAN Trade Union Council (n.d.), across the Southeast Asia, Philippines top the highest rate of economic and social inequality. For that reason might be because of the rising disparity between the rich and poor citizens that affected the educational and vocational programs and the distribution of lands. These inequalities mostly distress indigenous people and the ones who suffers the most. Inequality is a problem but also a challenge in the elimination of poverty. In addition, there are further theories why poverty is still existing and how its factors shows in a country.

There are many theories surrounding the cause and effect of poverty. Ranging from the classical and neoclassical theory of poverty to the Marxian or radical theory of poverty. Theories regarding poverty do not revolve solely around economy, many also revolve around politics or psychology. Many of these theories were derived from previously existing theories and have been further developed. One of such theories about the cause of poverty is the World Bank’s three-pillar theory of poverty. This theory was derived from Sen’s Empowerment Theory. The theory proposed that poverty is not merely focused on “extremely low or no income”, but that it is also a lack of political and psychological power (Sen, 1999). Sen suggests that modern society restricts certain citizens of their power and control, thus resulting in poverty for those citizens. Sen believes that to escape poverty three things are necessary: (1) political, economic, and social freedom; (2) security and protection; and (3) transparent governmental activities (Sen, 1999).

The World Bank’s three-pillar theory of poverty further expands upon the three points of the empowerment theory, security, empowerment, and opportunity. The first pillar, “security”, of the three-pillar theory includes factors such as clean water, adequate food and housing, and the reduction to natural disasters, in other words survivability (World Bank, 2001). The second pillar, “empowerment”, of the three-pillar theory focuses on providing the poor with the means to acquire a greater voice to help them fight for their justice and their society (World Bank, 2001). Psychologically speaking, “empowerment” encourages people to work “with” the poor and not “for” the poor (World Bank, 2001; Carr, 2003). Lastly, the third pillar, “opportunity”, of the three-pillar theory states that poverty exists due to lack of opportunity to independently participate in the economy (World Bank, 2001).

Looking at poverty in the Philippines through the lens of the World Bank’s three-pillar theory, it can be observed that the Philippines does not meet the criteria necessary to escape poverty. In the Philippines, it can be seen that the streets are often polluted and filled with people in poverty. This shows that the people in poverty are not given enough security to allow them enough chance to escape poverty. Since there is a lack of security, the people in poverty have their hands full trying to find ways to survive. They spend most of their efforts finding ways to survive thus they cannot spare enough effort to escape from poverty. It can also be seen that in the Philippines, people with power do not help the people in poverty, as can be seen from the lack of political movements aiming to support the poor. There is a severe lack of empowerment towards giving the poor a chance to voice out their concerns about their situation. The powerful do not empower and work with the poor to help them escape poverty. People have their hands full with their own situations to have the leeway to help others. Another thing that can be seen in the Philippines is that there are hardly any opportunities for the poor to escape poverty due to reasons ranging from lack of education to lack of jobs fit for them. The lack of opportunities to find a sustainable job robs the poor of their chances to earn a living. The poor can hardly be blamed for the lack of opportunities. The fault for the lack of opportunities lies with the society of the Philippines rather than the individual people in poverty.

In essence, the Philippines does not provide enough security, empowerment, and opportunity for people to gain the chance to escape poverty. It can be said that the system of politics in the Philippines is flawed for not meeting the criterion that allows people to escape poverty. Therefore, in layman terms, the system of politics and the government in the Philippines is one of the fundamental causes as to why poverty continues to persist in the Philippines despite the numerous previous attempts to purge poverty in the Philippines.

As stated in the essay, an in-dept analysis of the poverty in Philippines comprised of a capitalist system with an inequality standing and having an incompetent government. Being in a capitalist country might improve the situation of poverty, however, people with power or has a high social standing are the ones who’s depriving people in escaping poverty since it can or will affect their status. In inequality, all kinds of inequality depending on the situation can be considered in poverty since many are not privileged to be like this and that, it results to unequal opportunities that leads to poverty. In line with this, having an unequal opportunities means that people are just finding ways to survive and not be able to secure themselves against poverty because they lack resources. Furthermore, the government system of the Philippines can also be  deemed as one of the fundamental causes of poverty in Philippines based on the lens of the World Bank’s three-pillar theory. Seeing that this theory has a criterion regarding the status of poverty, it can be distinguished that the Philippines does not meet the criterion to escape poverty because of the established claims that was stated in this essay.

BERNARDO, CO, INTAL, MARIANO, TALUB (IS211)

[field-notes-from-wacotown]

A stream of grief screams: On listening to Homecoming podcast, as I walk my service dog.

I’m not really sure where to begin this narrative so I’ll do what my friend Jen (and writing teacher) taught me to do. Put words on the page and see what comes out of your brain.

Content note: suicides of soldiers and former service men and women. Lots of strong language. Substance misuse and abuse. Emotional manipulation and abuses of power discussed.

Maybe I’ll begin here. I went to high school in a 26,000 populated town in East Texas (near Commerce and Paris, TX). I remember the military recruitment tables who stalked our junior- and senior high school, mostly teen boys and a few butch teen girls. The officers looked like bible salesmen or snake oil peddlers. They offered the ASVAB, as if it was a gospel track or these students’ salvation. A answer to the abyss of poverty and no direction of post-graduation.

This is who you are. We’ll train you to be better: Soldiers. Identified by serial numbers and rankings. Real people. Not fuck ups who never left Greenville. Not the guys who work at Walmart and smoke too much weed on the weekends to try to forget no one really believed in them (or cared) anyway. The high school graduated them, passed these perceived fuck-ups through regular classes. Caps were tossed. Graduation robes discarded. Now you are no longer our problem.

Maybe the military wants your burnout-fuck-up-self. They will make you a soldier. Push that sadness down, that anger too, channel those intense emotions into endless war, in deserts you never planned to visit (or die in). You have purpose now. Just sign our contract. Take our blood money; you are one of us now. A soldier. Leave your sadness, existential fears, and doubts behind. Join us. We’ve waited 4 years for you to decide on what we have already planned for you. Come join the war machine. You matter now. Soldier.

When I listen to Homecoming, on my walks with my service dog, I hear the voices of the Podunk town where I graduated high school. Where Walmart was an escape in high school, a place to explore on Friday nights, and the steady place of employment for the fuck-ups who couldn’t do college. Or perhaps college couldn’t do them. Most of those “fuck-ups” probably had learning disabilities or emotional problems, not their fault at all.

The fault of a series of rube goldbergian systems that set these teen boys (and a few butch teen girls) up to fail. If we don’t help you, they thought, we can train you to be only one thing: better cogs for a broken machine. The machine is wearing out, breaking slowly, losing its usefulness, but they keep feeding it cogs to eat. To break; to destroy. To send off to war. To die. Or best case scenario for the military nightmare high ups, they’re not people - they’re fuck up burn out soon poors anyway, to die at their own hands: Guns in mouths, then bullets into brains. Pills in mouths. Repeatedly swallowed, until existence fades away then stops entirely. Numbed out by nonprescribed substances: pills, liquids, solvents, aerosols, and chemistry lab experiments gone wrong.

Fading away from notice until the military industrial complex can ignore these broken ex-soldiers or blame their deaths on: “I wish we could stop these tragedies. We really do. But they gave up. They lost hope. We’re sorry for them, but honestly, they were never really there or real to us, anyway. Burnt-out-fuck-ups, sacrificed to the war machine. Gone at: 22. 24. 19. 20. 26. 28. 32. 39. 40. 50. 62. 22. 20. 16.

We lost them. Of course we don’t blame ourselves, said the war machine; they merely fell into harms’ way. Fog of war. Passive voice shielding them from further inquiry. I wish they could just forget. What happened. Over there. So we could forget about them. Soldiers yet again. Let’s send them back into the deserts, like deserted perpetual motion machines. Fallen, dying demigod, risen yet again. Ad nauseum.

This is the Homecoming I never expected. 20-somethings from a small town with one major highway and one public high school. Gone. Lost; dead. Best forgotten? No. But hearing their stories is so much more painful than deadening our collective narratives and memories. We are witnesses to their homecoming recollections. All of us. But especially those left behind, me included, like them. “May we mourn for the dead. And fight like hell for the living,” Mother Jones reminded us.

Amen.

[highlydissfunctional]

Haters gonna hate, trolls gonna troll: Where does social media stand in online wars?

(Warning: Long read ahead)

In layman’s terms, trolling means intentionally creating verbal fights online – or online wars if you will – by making controversial or offensive comments to provoke emotions of readers, pushing them to engage in these fights for a troll’s personal amusement or gain while haters usually just participate in online hate speeches. However, the two do have one thing in common: they make life online one hell of a ride.

Although trolling is seen as the lighter, less harmful version of online hate speeches, they are at times taken seriously by authorities, such as in the case of Sean Duffy, a 25 year-old who was imprisoned for 18 weeks in the U.K for commenting and mocking the death of two teenagers on a tribute page on Facebook – which brings us to the work of Whitney Phillips centering around trolls targeting online memorial sites. 

Phillips suggested that despite popular belief that these type of trolls are heartless beings bombarding mourners with offensive insults, there is another side to the story. She stated that these trolling practices are predominantly targeted at “grief tourists”; people who aren’t actually related to whoever is being mourned over and are simply joining in on the “fun” (technically grief) of mourning over the deceased, thus proposing that trolling “grief tourists” is a righteous action taken against those clouding tribute or memorial sites with insincere grief (Sherpherd et. al 2015).

Even so, trolling often causes more harm than good. They not only are pawns used to shift the people’s attention away from rising social issues like sexism, racism, homophobia and others, they are also huge contributors to the normalization of online hate and harassment by legitimizing hate speech – which is related to an individual’s esteem need to exist, to be (Sherpherd et. al 2015). Those who assume the identity of a hater are people who struggle to exist online and have resorted to lowly means like hate-advocating on social media in their journey to achieve online relevance and significance. 

And this is where social media comes in and joins the party because as of today, we can’t have one without the other; where social media goes, online hate speech follows.

But why is social media so closely related to hate?

Well, this has a lot to do with social media sites’ open-to-all infrastructure and the liberal ideal of freedom of expression. Unregulated online spaces are the unguarded soil that let the idea of freedom of speech grow and blossom into what we know today as hate speech (Sherpherd et. al 2015). As the limits of hate speech have always been ill-defined on social media platforms, to participate in hate speech and to get away with it scot-free is like a walk in the park – maybe even easier – which gave rise to the widespread participation in online hate speech.

However, it is unfair to say that social media created hate speech because this would imply that people have never intentionally offended or insulted others before social media came along, which we know is untrue. Hate has always been around. It was here in the form of racism against African-Americans in the 1950s, it was here in the form of transphobia when Masha P. Johnson was found dead in the Hudson River in 1992 and it was definitely still here 4 years ago in the form of hashtag-turned-hate-campaign #GamerGate. If anything, the actions of people online are a mere reflection of their actions offline. Take #GamerGate for example:

Although it was originally stated to be a plight for gaming ethics, further understanding showed that it is actually a backlash and hate campaign against the increasing presence and participation of women in the gaming industry which is perceived to be a change from pre-(s)existing cultural norms (Sherpherd et. al 2015). In simpler words, men felt that women were threatening their male power and privilege in games. Feeling offended, they organized a campaign to show the rest of the world that men are the “true” gamers – depicting how sexist and misogynistic the gaming culture AND the people part of that community are, who are probably as sexist as they are online and offline.

And is anyone doing anything about all this hate? 

Frankly....no, not really. There have been efforts (as there always are) from social media management companies: The Black Lives Matter Facebook group – a target of malicious, hate-fueled comments – has reached an agreement with Facebook to shield certain pages, meaning flagged hate speech will reach the chain of command more quickly; Twitter representatives have responded to online abuse against women by promising to collaborate with the Women, Action and the Media organization while its own CEO also personally apologized for the company’s prior inadequate action regarding women abuse online (Shepherd et. al 2015). 

But, how effective are these actions against the persistent spreading of hate online? Especially when these companies practice the very deeply embedded victim-blaming culture and understand that to them, hate online is more of a profitable development than a problem; which is why alternative interventions are much needed.

However, social media platforms responsible for hosting these abuse are not the ones advocating and developing plans to mitigate online hate. Unfortunately, this burden falls yet again on the shoulders of the victims and the marginalized because policies created and implemented by the non-diverse workforce in tech industries  – made up mostly by people not part of the marginalized groups – will not do much nor will they do nearly enough in protecting people against online abuse, hence why the marginalized are forced to take matters into their own hands in fighting against online hate and abuse.

In the face of online wars of hate and trolling, social media’s affordances are the key used to open doors to the facilitation of hate speech and organization of hate-driven collective movements against the oppressed and marginalized groups both in online and offline societies. Thus, to properly combat this issue, I believe that a mix of corporate technological policy, legislative solutions and an understanding of the underlying online and offline culture is needed to develop a long-term fix for a longstanding problem.

References

Sherpherd, T, Harvey, A, Jordan, T, Srauy, A & Miltner, K 2015, ‘Histories of hating’, Social Media + Society, 1(2), pp. 1 - 10, 4.

[orbemnews]

L Brands Plans to Spin Off Victoria’s Secret Exclusive: L Brands will spin off Victoria’s Secret L Brands has decided to spin off Victoria’s Secret rather than sell it, DealBook is first to report. The company said last year it was considering separating Victoria’s Secret from the rest of its business, and we previously reported that it was testing private equity’s interest. Ultimately, sources say, L Brands has decided to split itself into two independent, publicly listed companies: Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works. The deal is expected to close in August. Bids didn’t match what Victoria’s Secret expects to get in a spinoff. DealBook hears that L Brands received several bids north of $3 billion. It turned them down, because it expects to be valued somewhere between $5 billion and $7 billion in a spinoff to L Brands shareholders. Analysts at Citi and JPMorgan recently valued Victoria’s Secret as a stand-alone company at $5 billion. The pandemic torpedoed a sale last year for much less. That agreement, announced in February 2020 with the investment firm Sycamore Partners, valued Victoria’s Secret at $1.1 billion. Apart from a pandemic that was about to upend the retail industry, Victoria’s Secret was dealing with a series of challenges: a brand that had fallen out of touch, accusations of misogyny and sexual harassment in the workplace and revelations about the ties between Les Wexner, the company’s founder and former chairman, and Jeffrey Epstein. (Wexner stepped down as C.E.O. last year and said in March that he and his wife are not running for re-election on the company’s board.) As the pandemic shuttered stores and battered sales, Sycamore sued L Brands to get out of the deal, and L Brands countersued to enforce it, heralding a spate of similar battles between buyers and sellers. Eventually, in May 2020, the sides agreed to call off the deal. A lot has changed since then. Six months ago, L Brands tapped Martin Waters, who headed its international division, to be C.E.O. of Victoria’s Secret, and he will continue to lead the company after the spinoff. The retailer has overhauled its brand, de-emphasizing the overtly sexy image and products that customers saw as exclusionary. It has become “less focused on a specific demographic target and more focused on being broadly inclusive of all women of all shapes and sizes and colors and ethnicities and genders and areas of interest,” Waters said on a recent earnings call. The company also closed more than 200 stores and focused on improving profitability, which rose sharply at the end of last year, surpassing its prepandemic results. The pandemic has spawned some retail winners. Victoria’s Secret, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Michaels and others were able to accelerate digital transformations that may have otherwise taken years. Direct sales at Victoria’s Secret in North America rose to 44 percent of the total last year, from 25 percent the year before. It’s unclear whether pandemic shopping trends will stick, and “it would be reasonable to expect some reversion,” Stuart Burgdoerfer, the L Brands C.F.O., said at a March event. “But I also think that people have very much enjoyed some of the benefits that were forced on us or triggered through the pandemic.” HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Markets wobble amid inflation fears. U.S. stock futures are down, as are European and Asian stock indexes, following data showing that U.S. consumers expect a bump in inflation and that factory-gate prices in China rose more than expected last month. April’s Consumer Price Index data is set to be released today, and is expected to show a sharp rise from a pandemic-depressed level last year. China’s birthrate slows again. The country’s population is growing at its slowest pace in decades, posing grave social and economic risks to the world’s second-largest economy. While the U.S. also reported a drastic slowdown in population expansion, China “is growing old without first having grown rich,” The Times’s Sui-Lee Wee writes. President Biden defends federal unemployment benefits. He rejected claims that $300-a-week supplemental payments are deterring unemployed Americans from seeking work, but he ordered the Labor Department to help reinstate work search requirements. Separately, Chipotle said it was raising wages, to an average of $15 an hour, to attract workers. The Colonial Pipeline is expected to “substantially” reopen within days. The pipeline, which supplies nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel, is expected to restore most services by the weekend after a ransomware attack. U.S. authorities formally blamed a hacker group and pledged to “disrupt and prosecute” the perpetrators. More children may soon be vaccinated. The F.D.A. yesterday approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds in the U.S., potentially helping reopen schools and other parts of the economy more quickly. But while cases are declining worldwide, they are surging in countries that lack vaccines. And the W.H.O. labeled a virus variant spreading fast in India as “of concern.” Does Amazon need more money? Amazon sold $18.5 billion worth of bonds yesterday, joining other corporate giants taking advantage of ultralow interest rates to raise money because … well, why not? The e-commerce titan sold some of its debt at a record-low interest rate for a corporate issuer — barely above what the U.S. government pays. About $1 billion worth of two-year bonds has a yield just 0.1 percent above the equivalent in Treasuries. That’s a huge vote of confidence in Amazon, which has emerged as a huge winner during the pandemic. The company also set a record for yields on a 20-year bond, besting Alphabet. Over all, investors placed $50 billion worth of orders, underscoring enthusiasm for debt that yields next to nothing. Today in Business Updated  May 10, 2021, 5:52 p.m. ET It raised another $1 billion in the form of a sustainability bond, which is meant to finance investments in environmentally minded projects like zero-carbon infrastructure and cleaner transportation. Amazon is the latest company to sell bonds aimed at E.S.G. investors, a market that reached $270 billion last year and could double this year. To be sure, the bulk of the offering will finance typical corporate maneuvers like share buybacks, acquisitions and capital expenditures, according to the bond prospectus. It will add to the nearly $34 billion in cash that Amazon had on hand at the end of March — as will profits that are growing at extraordinary rates for a company of its size. Macy’s has proposed building a commercial office tower on top of its flagship Herald Square store in New York City, part of a broader development plan the retailer says would improve the area. It plans to spend $235 million on redeveloping subway stations and creating a “car-free pedestrian-friendly urban space.” The proposal is a bold bet by the beleaguered retailer that shoppers and workers will flood back there after the pandemic. How to collect a trillion dollars Today, the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Taxation will hold a hearing on offshore tax evasion. “The tax gap is a massive problem, especially the part driven by ultrarich individuals and corporations stashing income overseas,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the subcommittee chair, told DealBook. That gap “could be as much as a trillion dollars,” he said. “That’s trillion with a ‘T.’” This money would help fund President Biden’s spending plans, which also run into the trillions. It’s difficult to quantify just how much money goes uncollected each year, officials say. Corporate tax collections in the U.S. are “at historic lows and well below what other countries collect,” according to a recent Treasury report. U.S. multinational companies can be taxed at a 50 percent discount compared with their domestic peers, an incentive to shift profits abroad. “Bermuda, a country of merely 64,000 people, shows 10 percent of all reported U.S. multinational foreign profit,” the report explained. “The Biden administration is serious about stopping tax cheats and so are we,” Whitehouse said. The hearing, which features I.R.S. and Treasury officials, will discuss legislation to end corporate tax breaks that incentivize profit shifting, a proposed $80 billion investment in I.R.S. enforcement, a new approach to international tax diplomacy and proposed changes to the tax code. THE SPEED READ Deals The investment firm TPG named Jon Winkelried as its sole C.E.O.; Jim Coulter, who previously shared the role, will become executive chairman and lead the firm’s E.S.G.-focused funds. (Bloomberg) Vice Media is closing in on a deal to merge with a SPAC at a $3 billion valuation, which would leave existing investors in control. (WSJ) Elliott Management has reportedly taken a stake in Duke Energy and plans to push for a change in strategy, after the utility rejected a takeover bid by NextEra Energy. (WSJ) Politics and policy In Wall-Streeters-seeking-political-office news: Glenn Youngkin, the former Carlyle Group co-C.E.O., won the Republican nomination for Virginia governor; and Alex Lasry, the son of the hedge fund mogul Marc Lasry, is running for the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin as a Democrat. (NYT, WaPo) Big semiconductor makers and their customers have formed a new group to push for billions in federal funding to promote chip manufacturing in the U.S. (NYT) Tech Forty-four state attorneys general warned Facebook against plans to introduce a version of Instagram for children. (NYT) The Pentagon reportedly may scrap its JEDI cloud-computing program, the subject of a lawsuit by Amazon and criticism from lawmakers. (WSJ) Veteran traders are bringing old Wall Street tricks to crypto market-making. (Bloomberg) Best of the rest NBC said it won’t air next year’s Golden Globes ceremony, the biggest blow yet to the awards show as its organizers face criticism over a lack of diversity. (NYT) An American court rejected an Australian company’s bid to scrap Ugg as a U.S. trademark. In Australia, it’s a catchall term for sheepskin boots with fleece linings. (NYT) “How the Zoom era has ruined conversation” (WaPo) We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. Source link Orbem News #brands #plans #secret #spin #Victorias

[comm10group1]

Connecting the Dots

WOMEN IN MEDIA AND BUSINESS

Women, like any other minority groups, long for proper representation for them in a male-dominated society. In the Philippines, we have been dealing with issues regarding their status in our country for years. Through some examples we gathered, this blog will talk about how women are viewed in the Philippine media: how it created a fake representation and empowerment, and how women are constantly being used as a form of sexual object, entertainment, and business profit. We will also tackle the never-ending issue of victim-blaming.

ON WOMEN’S INSECURITIES BEING USED FOR PROFIT

It is not surprising that all of us have insecurities, we have some things that we are not proud of. This especially happens to women. This part of the blog will talk about how some women handle these insecurities and how others started to see it as an opportunity for profit.

Skin Whitening Products

       If you look at this without context, you may think that these two women are in some kind of competition. This image came from a brand called “Glutamax”, a skin whitening product, for their “Fair Advantage” campaign. The problem? It explicitly says that having a darker skin is “unfair” and those who have fairer skin have it better, and the only way to fight your own insecurity and discrimination you get is through having a “whiter” skin.

        Filipino women’s number one insecurity is their skin color, which should not even be a problem in the first place because historically speaking, our ancestors are dark-skinned, and it’s only after colonization that we saw the rise of Filipinos who are light-skinned. And as time goes by, our standards of being ‘beautiful’ become having a pale/lighter skin color. We are not against Filipino women opting to change what they do not like about themselves but skin whitening products like Glutamax have always profited off it and create problematic, colorist, and bordering on racist campaigns that target our women, making most of us feel even more insecure and bad about ourselves.

Cosmetic Surgeries

        Recently, a debate started in Twitter regarding cosmetic surgeries and whether it should be normalized. This started when singer Janine Berdin uploaded photos of her new look.

      A tweet from user @yuangonzaIes said, “i think we should start normalizing cosmetic surgeries here in our country. i can still remember what some of y'all did to arci muñoz back in 2017 when she had her nose done. there's nothing wrong with cosmetic surgeries, as long as it's for yourself. ang ganda, janine berdin!” A lot of people agreed with it, receiving 6K retweets and almost 39K likes.

      The problem?

      While it is true that we should remove all the stigma and discrimination against cosmetic surgery, normalizing it would also mean normalizing the fact that western features are the standards of beauty. Not to mention that this has become another thing that businesses capitalize on. The same thing with skin whitening, our insecurities get weaponized against us that we choose to change our features to the ones ‘most generally accepted’. We do not shame those who undergo cosmetic surgeries as we believe that we live in a world where we are free to choose and do what we want but the right words should be used. As user @thranduilien said, “plastic (cosmetic) surgery industry capitalizes on non-white people’s insecurities and pushes Eurocentric beauty standards.”

      What we should do is destigmatize and stop demonizing cosmetic surgeries and treating it like it is taboo or against society to undergo them.

Women Being Used as a “concept” to Sell Music

      Almost all of us listen to music on the daily, and it is not news to us that women are often being used as a concept to music. It is most especially noticeable in the Philippines. A song by Shanti Dope – Mau, became a hit among Filipinos, especially to the kids.

Sikretong malupit, pwede pabulong?

Mapapamura ka ng fuckshit, malutong

Makinis, maputi s'ya pero ba't gano'n?

Bakit sobrang grabeng maitim ang utong?

      These are the lyrics to his song that became a trend among Filipinos, and it is downright bothering and uncomfortable. The song sees women as nothing but objects that should be “shiny” and “pearly white”. It makes fun of a woman’s natural body and downplays her insecurities. This is not new to us, there are a lot of Filipino songs that see women as nothing but their bodies, they set these “standards” of being beautiful, but is it not a time for us to start calling out these artists who continuously make money by making their music all about a woman’s body?

ON OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN AND THE ISSUE OF RAPE

      With the #MenAreTrash and #MeToo movements gaining traction in popular culture, men and patriarchy are being exposed for their normalized behavior that objectifies women. Indeed, harassment in the streets has become ordinary in our country that a law prohibiting such acts has been passed. However, the objectification of women has been normalized in media too. This other half of the blog will examine media content that depicts women as sexual objects.

The Promiscuous Mistress in Teleserye and Films

"Querida, kabit, number two, mistress..."

      Illicit affairs have absurdly become a standard in the current line of soap operas and romantic films. The roots of this "tradition" can even be traced back from the early eras of Philippine media.

      Two Wives (2009), Ika-anim na Utos (2016-2018) and No Other Woman (2011) and other TV shows and films like these portray women as mistresses or the "kabit". The woman plays a promiscuous homewrecker that "steals" another wife’s husband.  The mistress is always blamed for the troubles, but never the cheating husband.

      The kabit stereotype encloses women into a notion that they are sexually reckless beings - that they wreck homes and destroy families. When this is emphasized it hides and tolerates the promiscuity of men.  Not only does it view the woman as a lesser sexual object, but it also nurtures the patriarchal reality of our country.

Women as Props in Television and Games Shows

      Game shows are a big hit for entertainment on television. While they offer thrill and excitement to their audiences, there are problematic elements behind some shows like Kapamilya: Deal or No Deal and Wowowin.

      In Kapamilya: Deal or No Deal, a charismatic male host Luis Manzano carries the show and helps the contestant decide in the game. But if you look in the background, dozens of women are hired to hold briefcases.

      Wowowin has the same case, but even worse. While it also has the same formula of "charismatic male host and background women", Wowowin's backup female dancers are dressed in revealing clothes.

      These types of actions seem to be irrelevant to the show itself. The game would still continue to be played in the way they should be. Women are just there to be decorations, a pleasant sight to see for the audience.

      This way of representing women screams objectification. It reduces them to mere objects, and even worse in Wowowin's case, as sexual objects. Wowowin, Deal or No Deal, and other similar game shows only perpetuate the objectification of women - one of the struggles of womankind in a patriarchal society.

Rape Jokes Against Women on Social Media

      Patriarchy has seemed to normalize the concept of sexual violence in our society. It happens within our homes, universities, workplaces, public transportation vehicles, everywhere, any time and any place. With patriarchy being a part of the everyday culture of the people, men are seen to be superior and women are only subordinates and are subjected to serve them. Because of this, societies build a certain attitude wherein women can be objectified, treated less or even worse – be sexualized.

      Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have been an agent in sharing and providing ideas that make the thought of sexual assault towards women as something fun and entertaining. The pictures (referred to as “memes”) shown above present how the concept of rape is something to be laughed about by people. They instituted (?) that women can easily be made fun of sexually, even if it is already degrading and disrespecting. Hundreds or even thousands of memes circle the internet creating a public attitude normalizing sexual assault and abuse, thus making rape culture common in society.

      It has become a stereotype that women are always inferior and powerless. They are seen as someone who can be stepped upon. They are weak and have no courage to stand up for themselves even when they are being sexualized, which results in men treating them with disrespect, offend them with their misogynistic slurs, and disregard their importance in society.

Victim Blaming

      Rape is a very traumatic experience and can create a negative psychological effect on the victim-survivor. Several myths about rape and sexual abuse still exist today. These views are widely held by many individuals and come from biases and assumptions that are expressed in our culture and perpetuate them. These myths discourage victim-survivors to come forward and stand up for themselves since society shifts the blame to them rather than the perpetrator of the crime.

      Whenever we hear that someone is raped, we would always hear the following:

“Ano ba kasi ang suot mo?”

“Baka naman kasi nakainom ka?”

“Bakit ka kasi sumama sa kanya?”

“Bakit ‘di ka humingi ng tulong?”

“Ginusto mo rin naman ‘yon”

      And the list goes on and on blaming the victim for the incident that had happened. People put the blame on the victim in order to lessen their discomfort about the thought and to feel good about themselves saying that they know better, that they would not be raped since they wore proper and respectable attire.

      In the two photos presented above, they show how the Philippine National Police gave “helpful” tips that would prevent cases of rape in the country. Even if the police had good intentions, they promoted victim-blaming by telling women how to dress in order to be respected. Not only that, but they also served as an insult to rape and sexually abused victims. Also, both photos gave women the notion that they are raped because of their actions and preferences.  

      Why do women need to be restricted and told what they should wear? What they should and should not drink? Who they should and should not go out with? Why do they have to feel scared whenever they walk alone at night? Why are women blamed for showing too much skin? Why can’t they freely express themselves without being harassed and judged by society? Why blame women for being raped? Why not blame men? The rapists? Why is the woman always at fault?

      The problem with rape is that society recognizes it as something that is common in the lives of women. It shows how women are undermined and disregarded by society. It confirms how the majority of the people still favor men over women, that women will always be women – weak, powerless, and defenseless, that no matter what they do, men will always be greater and powerful than them. This represents how patriarchal beliefs and power still controls how people think today – that women can always be objectified and sexualized, that men are capable of manipulating them and making them subject to their wants and needs.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO THEN?

      In this post, we tackled some examples of blatant misrepresentations of women in many forms of media - from posters to tweets.  We also analyzed the problematic elements behind it and its effect on them. However, just discussing these issues doesn’t seem to be enough. Women still continue to struggle in society partly because of these stereotypes engraved across every form of media. With this, we should take action and condemn these problematic portrayals. To avoid misrepresentation, we urge the media and its practitioners to:

Look into the perspective of women. Before writing a script or a pitch, walk a mile in women’s shoes before depicting them in your materials. Communicate with women. Ask them directly if your content has offensive elements. Or if not, ask yourselves if they would’ve wanted to be portrayed that way.

Research extensively. Women’s history and background should be carefully studied. This is especially for stronger and more sensitive depictions of women such as prostitutes, single mothers, transgenders, and others as their struggles should not be taken lightly.

Analyze the material for stereotypical depictions, and the relevance of them. Some media content have stereotypical descriptions and personalities of women that don't seem to add much to the storyline or impact. If it’s not necessary, please remove them.

Study the contents for any missing details or description significant to women. While we talked about irrelevant descriptions above, it’s also important to see if there are any relevant depictions of women that are not added to the material.

Give more opportunities for women in administrative offices and productions. Women should be hired more in terms of media production, directing, and decision-making. Through the vision of women, it will not just diversify the content and change the dynamics, it will make us see the world through their eyes.

Lastly and most importantly, educate the masses. Media is a powerful tool that can shape and influence the people. That power should’ve been used to educate people; instead of tolerating some ways of thinking that are shaped by the oppressive system.

References:

https://nextshark.com/whitening-brand-advertisement-colorism/

https://japansociology.com/2014/05/27/from-ebony-to-ivory-colorism-in-the-philippines/

https://twitter.com/yuangonzaIes/status/1313148930193063937

https://twitter.com/thranduilien/status/1313766901755965442

https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Shanti-Dope/Mau

https://twitter.com/jaicabajar/status/1314462519189098501/photo/1

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/07/19/18/angono-cops-sorry-for-anti-rape-tips

https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/wac_prize/30/

https://www.rappler.com/nation/victim-blaming-why-survivors-sexual-violence-not-come-forward

https://coconuts.co/manila/features/mood-blood-filipino-tv-mistresses-women-love-hate/

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Racial microaggression

Racial microaggression is a concept which seems to have been formulated by the racial-grievance industry to fill the void left when white people stopped giving a shit about skin color. Today it’s actually racism to “not see color.” 

In other words, if what used to be known as “racism” no longer exists, you have to greatly expand the term’s breadth so that it includes words, thoughts, and acts that have zero conscious hostility behind them. You have to make everything racist, even breathing, just to stay in business.

The term “microaggression” was allegedly coined by Harvard professor Chester M. Pierce in 1970 to describe rude or dismissive behavior towards blacks. In 1973 a feminist economist at MIT named Mary Row hijacked Pierce’s neologism and expanded it to include the endless perceived slights, insults, and random cruelties that so many women claim to experience whether we realize it or not.

But it was Columbia psychology professor Derald Wing Sue, an Asian male in case such things are important to you, who really took the concept of “microaggressions” to the hoop in 2007 when he broke it down further into four micro-categories: “microassaults,” “microinsults,” “microinvalidations,” and, most amusingly, “microrape.” It gets worse. Not only is there microaggressions, but macroaggressions and even invisibility aggressions.  

This handy table from the University of Minnesota which outlines several prominent forms of racial microaggressions. These include asking a person where they were born, complementing someone’s articulation or daring to say the best-qualified person should get the job. 

Even if you have no hatred in your heart and even if you make the most obsequious gestures of appeasement, you are still hurting them and acting racist toward them because, because you’re white. That’s right, a racial microaggression is a white person asking a nonwhite person where they were born, but saying all white people are born with hurtful, subconscious racist tendencies which is oppressing everyone by merely existing is common fact.

That’s what’s ultimately dangerous about this concept of “microaggression”-under this framework, bigotry is solely in the eyes of the accuser. No matter how pleasant your demeanor or how generously you act, you can still be bludgeoned over the head with baseless accusations of unconscious racism, and your accuser will feel like they have served due justice.

I can’t imagine the agony of being a person of color on a college campus these days, what with all the microaggressions, microinsults, microinvalidations, microassaults, and especially all the microrape. Why, it’s enough to make a person of color want to drop out of college entirely.

We have even seen the rise of “race fatigue,” where black students and staff complain that after spending an entire day around white people, and being subjected to their invisible acts of aggression and racism, that they go home feeling “fatigued.” As April Hathcock says, “the more white people, the longer the time period, the more intense the race fatigue.”

Instead of focusing on real problems, these invisible, unintentional acts of “racism” are being used to put the blame on dropout rates and low academic performance among a certain racial group who shall not be named but you can probably guess anyway which is why I don’t feel the need to name them, which I suspect may be my unconscious way of racially microaggressing upon them. It all just seems a little too convenient to me.  

To remedy these imaginary torments and tortures, students are being forced to “complete a General Education requirement about race, White privilege, and inequality in the United States.” They “must take both a non-Western culture and a US people of color cultural course,” too. Not only that, the university system must “include diversity and inclusion in a third of the curriculum of all college 101 classes.” Yep, all a little too convenient. 

[suburbanidiocies]

On Transgression

That we went too far at some point along the way is a general consensus. We are living in the after effects of one wrong turn or another. Perhaps it was the victory of neoliberalism in the 80s (or was it earlier?). Maybe, if one is inclined another way, it was the counterculture of the 60s. Either unashamed money making or ecstatic pleasure, or both together, have become hegemonic, Mammon and Dionysus entwined in a fatal chain that encompasses the world. But this may be optimistically making our woes of a too recent origin. We must look further. Present day realities may be mere symptoms of something more fundamentally awry with modernity.  Maybe we took a turn for the worse with the Industrial Revolution, or the birth of capitalism, or the conquest of the Americas. Those not interested in these “materialistic” explanations say it was the humanism of the Enlightenment that put us on the wrong track. Others, more consistent, prefer to blame the Reformation. More subtly still, perhaps the wheels of the Satanic mills were set in motion when late medieval Catholic theologians elided the distinction between the divine subsistance of God and the common Being of all creatures. Or maybe Aquinas himself was already too corrupted by ontotheology. But this perhaps gives too much credit to the intellectuals. Going back further, the corruption may have came in with Constantine and the marriage of the religion of Jesus with the wickedness of temporal power. But then again, perhaps the pagans have been right all along. Maybe it was Christianity which poisoned the well of the shining spirit of antiquity; perhaps the Roman Empire really was rotted from within by a mystery cult from the East that scorned the accumulated wisdom of millennia. Bolder speculators go further and following Nietzsche and Heidegger find the great detorunment occurred even earlier with the advent of Plato and his cold, rationalistic gaze that slew the Homeric/Pre-Socratic spirit. But to stop here is to only restrain ourselves to the ambit of what is still called Western civilization. To find what actually went wrong, we may have to go deeper still. Perhaps it was when the starry gods  were taken down from the sky, their motions transformed into mystifying tales of murder and rape. Or maybe it was when the first principle of all things was lost in all too human, and all too bestial, pantheons, becoming an invisible prisoner in the house that it itself had made. Perhaps it was the invention of war. Or patriarchy. Or agriculture. Maybe, as Rousseau thought, the source of all our later unhappiness was the moment a human being imposed  the distinction between “mine” and “yours” on the universal commons of nature. But all this has to do with language and institutions, when the real guilt may lie deeper still in our very physiology. Maybe some basic desire, some primal hunger, betrayed us in the infancy of our kind.  Perhaps the road to planetary death began the moment some early hominids tasted meat and liked it. Less savory theories along these lines could be proposed

One can go on and on. It was the man, it was the woman, it was the serpent. And where did he come from? Each wound reveals another wound, each stumble a new limit, until one arrives at the conclusion that our birth was our death. Creation itself was the original disaster; we are but insects living on the corpse of an aborted world.

Sensing perhaps the ever present possibility of such a regression into Gnosticism, certain theologians preempted this line of speculation by making the Fall itself, in some sense, a blessed occasion.The mysterium iniquitatis  was supplemented by an intuition of a mystery of a higher order. The necessary imperfection of whatever is finite and material in relation to its origin had to be turned from a weakness into a potential strength. Not in the sense that we must sin that grace may more abound, but in the sense that from the recollecting perspective of the redeemed life “ all things work together for good to them that love God.” On the day we sinned, our eyes were indeed opened, for better as well as for worse. The desire to be like gods that began in an error was indeed answered after the long pilgrimage of the centuries.The founding disaster of Genesis was the precondition for the glory of the Gospel where humanity was joined in the divinity that died and rose again.  The loss of the simplicity of the garden is redeemed with the building up of the great city of Yahweh-Shammah, the New Jerusalem, with its twelve gates opened in all directions to the ingress of the nations.  Nothing evil, then, not even the archetype of all later sins, is permitted to exist without reason.  And so the line O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem was incorporated into the liturgy, chanted every year with the rest of the Exsultet to accompany the lighting of the Paschal candle. 

Or, as the old hymn went:

Blessed be the time

That apple taken was,

Therefore we moun singen.

Deo gratias!

***

Into the thick of such matters Angela Nagle comes with her notions of transgression and virtue. Like most of us, she fights a battle on two fronts. On the one hand she wants to attack the alt right. At the same time she wants to combat a tendency of the left which has, in her account, prepared the way for a resurgent reaction. The love of revolt for the sake of revolting embraced by liberalism and leftwing radicals has become the occasion as well as the inspiration for the creation of a rancid fascism no longer held back by traditionalist scruples or bourgeois respectability. Just as viruses become, with time, stronger as a result of antibiotics , the far right was emboldened by the cultural prescriptions that was meant to destroy it for good.The Left called forth beasts from the deep, and they came, but, as devils are wont, not in the way expected.

There is a correct intuition in this narrative that should be acknowledged from the get go.  Everything else being equal, a plenitude of norms restrains the powerful who find in such circumstances their ability to abuse others frustrated, while a lack of such norms tends to put those with the least ability to defend themselves at a disadvantage. Further, reason finds in the universality of the law the expression a general duty which levels all distinctions of class, sex,race, and nation. The war of all against all is the the realm of fatal competition while the kingdom of right is the domain of peace. As Lacordaire eloquently said: 

Learn, then, those who know it not; learn, enemies of God and of the human race, whatever name they bear, that between the strong and the weak, between the rich and the poor, between the master and the servant, it is liberty that oppresses, and law that gives freedom.

It is not sufficient, however, to say the law in the abstract is good and transgression is bad. One must ask: Whose law? Which transgression?  Who stands to gain? Regarding these questions Nagle remains vague and tries to combine lot of disparate movements together in a manner that confuses clear judgement. 

To the extent that society is socially segmented, transgression has a class content, not to mention a racial and gendered meaning as well. There is a difference between a revolt of the peasants and a revolt of the lords, between the thefts of proletarians and those of bankers, between African Americans or women breaking the law to gain the vote and Klansmen doing the same to intimidate the alien in their midst. Does this mean that violation of norms is always right as long as one is “kicking up”? Not at all. The Kishinev pogrom and the Gordon Riots  were not justified because many of the participants in each event were plebeians. Justice demands more than simply applying an arithmetic of privileges to every political incident or moral problem. But the real inequality of conditions does mean that one should take into consideration the social position of the trangressors in each individual case, and exercise forbearance accordingly. 

Nagle rightly wishes to combat the influence of Nietzsche, which is indeed has managed to find all too eager reception on both segments of the left and the right. While his urge to transgression is perhaps more complicated than Nagle model seems to allow, it is true that his celebration of the will in the power is a powerful alibi for mere abuse and irrationalism in practice as well as in theory. But she seems willing to buy into the Nietzchean narrative when it comes to the description of the Tumblr liberalism that allegedly provoked the rise of the alt right.  Nietzsche blames the Judaic ressentiment of the slaves for the destruction of the free spirited culture of antiquity, and justifies his own aspiration for a new aristocratic transvaluation of culture  by decrying the mediocrity and revengeful herd morality of modern society. Similarly, Nagle locates the origin of the counter-revolution of the alt right in the excesses of radicals and liberals themselves, in their culture of vindictiveness,petty spite, and “virtue signaling”. In one essay, she approvingly quotes Nietzche’s cynical inversion of Luke: “ He who humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.” In addition, her sympathy for Mark Fisher’s Vampire Castle thesis makes this connection to a Nietzchean critique of democratic culture explicit. Such a kinship doesn’t in and of itself make her words invalid. But it certainly creates an unaddressed tension between her stated distaste for the tradition of transgression and the critique of contemporary liberalism/leftwing radicalism she wishes to level. She wants to condemn the Nietzchean/Sadean strain of modernity, but she also wants to take as her own its critique of virtue as a mere mask for the will to power. Nagle thus has none of  the same dialectical self awareness that motivated Adorno and Horkheimer to say: “It is the fact that Sade did not leave it to its enemies to be horrified by the Enlightenment which makes his work pivotal to its rescue.” Whether this is the correct attitude one should take towards the “dark writers of the bourgeoisie” is a different question. But it is a more intellectually honest position than the tack that Nagle is taking.

There are moments when people break rules just for the frisson of disobedience, Augustine stealing pears being the canonical example in the philosophical tradition. Most trespasses against the law, however, are done for some good or another, albeit in an often misdirected way. There are, for example transgressions done for straightforward aims like power, glory, or pleasure. But then then there are transgressions done in enforcement of the principle of law itself. Obedience to mores themselves can become an excuse for perversion. The “cucked” weakness of authority is corrected through an obscene demonstration of strength.Self-righteousness, contempt for one’s own failings,a desire to scapegoat,and a rage at disgraced resented fathers combine into a deadly form of jouissance  in the service of reestablishing through transgression the terror of certain social taboos amid the general social entropy. But  Nagle, since she is fixated by the defiantly antinomian cruelty of Sade’s stories, does not consider scenarios in which law can itself become an accessory for pleasure. Perhaps she doesn’t wish to contemplate the possibility that her own appeal for a more moral politics can turn into its opposite. Unlike Adorno, she doesn’t sense the similarity between Nietzche’s fantasy of the Overman and the nobility of the categorical imperative. Or perhaps she wishes to avoid engaging with the rather strident moral claims made by many alt-righters themselves which constitutes the positive side, so to speak, of their penchant for nihilistic humor. Nagle may find it easier to defend her own attempt at a third way in the discourse by saying that she opposed to the glorification of transgression by the left and the right alike, when in reality breaking rules may not be the most distinguishing feature of any significant contemporary movement.

This is in part why trying to tie the alt-right to the carnivalesque as theorized by Bakhtin is insufficient. There certainly is an element of that quality among many present day fascists that deserves analysis, but that element is certainly not unique to them. What makes the alt-right the alt-right is the specific political meaning it gives to the nonsensical and sarcastic sensibility of contemporary culture. Further, as with other political persuasions, the mask of irony and absurdism among internet Nazis can hide a fatal earnestness. To assume that it is Kek all the way down both underestimates the problem and also cedes to the fascists’ self description as being at bottom cool, calm, and above it all. 

What Nagle is trying to do here is comparable to the common ideological trick of eliding the difference between 20th century actually existing  socialism and fascism. What is called Stalinism and Nazism represent two ideologically movements with distinct principles, aims, and social content. They should each be handled on the basis of their individual merits (or lack thereof). This doesn’t mean that the two can never combine,since the case of National Bolshevism shows that is a quite real possibility. Nor does this mean that the series of Events set off by 1917 is above all censure. Rather, it means the synthesis should be called out as its own movement, while the two opposing systems should not be indiscriminately dumped into a common bucket of shame labelled totalitarianism or what have you. A similar approach must be had when dealing with post 60s liberalism/SJWs/pomos and the alt right. In a world where “all things…permeate and respond to each other,” finding similarities, while never trivial, is fairly easy to do. It is the decisive differences  which are often more telling. Above all, while the work of genealogy is important,  responsibility must ultimately adjudicated based on individual faults, not intellectual paternity. On this point one cannot improve on the curtness of the prophet:  Everyone will die for their own sin. 

It is true that the “the ideologically flexible, politically fungible, morally neutral nature of transgression” makes it insufficient as a basis for any sort of livable rule of life, let alone politics. But by the same token, this lack of determination in the matter of the object makes the general condemnation of transgression equally inadequate. Nagle gestures towards a form of neopuritanism without a God that would, in theory, avoid the extremes of the alt right or the Tumblr left. But this devotion to the Law often seems to be little more than a shadow, a mere abstract negation that has no independent content of its own.

In fairness, there are faint suggestions here and there of what a concrete standard is at play in this argument. Nagle does say at one point: “for progressive politics anti-moral transgression has always been a bargain with the devil, because the case for equality is essentially a moral one.” This seems to posit some positive standard (namely equality) by which to judge the violation of norms. But since all of the leftwing transgressive tendencies she lists are done in the name of equality,it unclear how the same value by itself can be invoked as restraint on what has happened since the 60s. For that matter, all the modern revolutions that invoked egalitarianism  have involved the breaking of rules of one sort or another. How are we to distinguish between what is good and what is suspect in such movements if we are to avoid giving undue praise to transgression ? Greater clarity is needed from Nagle on this point.

We come to the most concrete definition of what Nagle is attacking when she defines transgression as a  Sadean “devaluing of the procreative female body.” There certainly is a broad vaguely “counter-cultural” tendency to denigrate biological reproduction and woman’s role in the propagation of the species. Hence the appeal of eugenics, population control, and transhumanism among a wide variety of constituencies. But the generality of Nagle’s words leaves  unanswered important questions: What shall we do with all the desires which escape realization in procreation? Are merely having such inclinations misogynistic? Or is Nagle only concerned about certain expressions of nonreproductive desire  ? And if so which ones and why? Nagle doesn’t address any of these concerns. She only hints at what proper sexual morality would be as a way of shaming all her intended targets, without getting into potentially controversial details about what she means. 

In the end, it is fitting that Nagle openly draws upon Christopher Lasch, who took from Christianity primarily the weight of Original Sin, not the hope of the Resurrection. She can posit only the sin (rather hazily defined) and the Law (also vaguely sketched out). Prohibition in denial about pleasure and revolt without a telos are fated to meet each other constantly in an endless futile combat.  A third term is needed if liberty is to be achieved 

***

Moving away from the cold cruelty of the aristocratic Sade, the tragically ferbile pretensions to elite status of Nietzsche, and the defiantly petite bourgeois pessimism of Lasch, we arrive at Plato who combined the virtues and the critique of his own class into a compelling, and enduring, whole. Disillusioned with the divinely sanctioned hubris and lust of the society in which he lived, he nevertheless did not fail to find in his surroundings fragments of a better world. The toxic environment upheld by the mythological sensibility, the admiration for martial prowess, and, infamously, the idealization of paiderastia was subverted by the quiet sober work of the dialectic, represented by the ugly and plebeian Socrates. But simultaneously these same overcome elements were turned into motifs of a new music of the spirit. The Olympian myths were remade into philosophical visions, the Homeric agon was reimagined as the encounter of minds in dialogue, and the predatory erastes/eromenos hierarchy (”as wolves loves lambs, so lovers love their loves”)was refashioned into a friendship for eternity,each partner simultaneously master of themselves and a holy force spurring the other to join in the procession of the gods. 

One of several clues to this transmutation of the themes from the dominant culture into the work of philosophy lies in Plato’s defense of madness (mania) in the Phaedrus. The first two speeches of the dialogue defend the notion that the non-lover is better than the lover, because the former is not prejudiced by passion, consumed by jealousy, inclined to take advantage of his partner, etc. Such an inversion of the commonplace on the surface would seem to fit Plato’s preference for the authority of reason over the caprices of passion. Plato even seems early on to suggest such a conclusion by invoking the story  of the carrying off of Orithyia by Boreas, which is certainly not a model of companionship worth emulating however much it seems to interest Phaedrus. But ultimately Socrates decides such a condemnation of eros is a false, even impious, paradox. Certain forms of madness are gifts from the gods, and the ecstasy of love is one such insanity. What drives one to cross limits is not simply a curse but a necessary element of the motion of our souls. What is in us that longs to be seized is not simply a temptation to mere subordination but is the desire for the genuine emancipation of consciousness from itself.These contradictory impulses are not to be denied but, through the encounter with the lover/beloved and the self control of the individual soul, integrated into one personhood oriented towards what is truly real. Death and seduction must be risked in order to be transcended. The wise man, the just man, is one who has assimilated the possibility of transgression into the pattern of his life. A state of constant sober madness become the homeland in which one lives and moves in freedom.

Amidst the amorous and pastoral setting haunted by the ghosts of past violence grows the chaste agnus castus, providing shade for all who choose to lie beneath it.

***

Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! said  St. Augustine of Hippo, juxtaposing all the wasted years with the light of the Gospel that he had found. And so do many of us when an epiphany, a true Event, occurs. We regret the thoughtlessness, the betrayals, the aimless wanderings, by which we have put off the demands of the truth. 

But if we would be more merciful to ourselves,and more honest about how the process of illumination  takes place here below, we should sympathetically read all our errors as prologues to what we now know. Every proposition and every action captures a partial truth. In order that every one can have a role to play in the ceremony, many exaggerations, comic as well as tragic, farcical as well as oracular, are permitted to exist for the upbuilding or correction of all who have eyes to see and ears to hear. If we have been wrong, then we can take solace in the knowledge that we were always inspired fools who didn’t know just how truly we spoke. Nor can we be ashamed of the original twist given to newly discovered truths by the accumulated weight of our old habits. Happy are they who have never had occasion to falter,but happy too are those who know the alchemy of turning vices into virtues. The light becomes all the more splendid through the play of chiaroscuro that is permitted to glorify the advent of divinity. In this way, all add their own irreplaceable imago to the collage of humanity as it is assembled into a bifurcated order that we only dimly intuit through the sense of faith and the speculations of reason. 

As St. Francis de Sales said in a passing analogy. 

The scorpion who stings us is venomous, but when his oil has been distilled, it is the best remedy for his bite;

[junker-town]

The Astros have a misogyny problem because sports have a misogyny problem

Roberto Osuna joined the Houston Astros at the 2018 trade deadline. He did so under what might be euphemistically called a cloud. Osuna, widely (and to most people irrelevantly) considered one of the top relief options in baseball, was at the time serving a 75-game suspension for assaulting the mother of his young child*, and the decision to acquire him was met with a combination of bafflement and scorn. How could this happen? Why did Houston, possessors of a “no-tolerance” domestic violence policy, decide to make the trade and then twist themselves in knots to justify it?

*The alleged victim refused to return to Canada to testify, and charges were subsequently dropped.

With the Astros back in the World Series 14 months after that trade, assistant general manager Brandon Taubman took it upon himself to answer that question. Jose Altuve had just walked Houston off to clinch the ALCS, and, according to reporting from Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein, Taubman celebrated by taunting a group of female reporters. “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so fucking glad we got Osuna!”

The most toxic level — sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape — is brutal and easy to condemn. But Taubman exposed something perhaps more insidious: the structure that surface-level misogyny stands on. Taubman, as a senior member of Houston’s baseball operations staff, was one of those whose judgement was implicitly questioned in the wake of the Osuna trade; his response, evidenced by his outburst, seems to have been a mixture of resentment and seething contempt.

Where Osuna and the Astros are concerned, domestic violence is a sideshow, subsumed in the need to win as many championships as possible. At its most important, it’s a PR game, one to which a front office might sacrifice a Double-A prospect but never anyone more valuable. When there’s a tradeoff between condemning domestic violence and actually winning, however, it’s an arbitrage opportunity. Osuna was a good player, he came cheap, and the Astros didn’t give a damn about why.

This might seem like a criticism of Taubman and the Astros. It is, but it also isn’t. Sports teams exist as an expression of local and national culture, and while the Astros are a particularly stark example, they’re still mostly an expression of the way sports works.

It’s tempting to suggest that a winning-at-all-costs mentality is to blame, but with half of MLB in tear-it-down-who-gives-a-shit mode these days, such an assertion would strain credulity. Rather, there’s an expectation that sports exist in its own world, untroubled by the buffeting and blowing that might exist elsewhere. “Stick to sports,” or so goes the refrain. As we’ve seen with Colin Kaepernick and the NFL, intruding into that bubble is a sin.

Thanks to the scrutiny around the Osuna trade, Taubman felt sinned against, and he punished that sin with a tirade against a group of women merely doing their jobs. That Taubman’s rant was the sort normally reserved for Twitter or Facebook comments is a reminder of the obstacles women in sports journalism face: not only are women massively underrepresented in the industry (SB Nation, to my horror, is part of the problem here), but they also face abuse at frankly obscene levels. The contempt for women which boils through sports manifests itself differently in different situations, but it manifests without fail.

“Stick to sports” misses the fundamental point: putting misogyny and baseball (or racism and soccer, or etc.) on the same moral plane is absurd. There is no cost-benefit analysis for teams to fiddle with here; the evil of domestic violence isn’t mitigated by how tightly the perpetrator can spin a slider. While teams can make decisions purely in a sporting sense, they don’t have to. The Astros’ path to the World Series would have been more difficult without trading for Osuna last year, but they’re a smart team. They could have figured out how to make that tradeoff.

Taubman’s comments suggest he both feels the trade was worth it and he feels aggrieved that anyone might have the temerity to suggest otherwise. Will he face any consequences? That seems unlikely at the moment. The Astros have already released a statement, contradicted by other journalists present in the clubhouse, claiming that Apstein’s story is fabricated (they didn’t bother giving her a comment pre-publication, of course). But even if Taubman was removed from his front office position, it’s hard to see anything changing.

Taubman isn’t a bad actor in a virtuous world. Without letting him or the Astros off the hook, we need to recognize Taubman is an expression of the system working like it wants to, supporting awful behavior and being supported in turn until any outrage disperses into confusion.

No matter what happens next, the truth is impossible to escape: it’s misogyny all the way down.

[augustixwi412-blog]

Is the Industry Doing Enough to Encourage Women?

"Wet basements are an exceptionally common issue amongst property owners. There is absolutely nothing even worse than having water problems in a completed basement. The best method to combat wet basements is to determine where the water is coming from. We will speak about some simple things you can do to locate where water is coming from and how to avoid it from coming into the basement.

One extremely common problem that we come across is bad grade around a foundation of a home. Sometimes if a property owner has a basement with water problems, the first thing we inspect is grade of the ground. The earth needs to always be pitched away from the foundation. If the ground is pitched toward the basement, rainwater will merely lie versus the wall and makes it way down in through the block. It is a very basic repair to change the grade of the dirt around your house. Lot of times individuals will pay a waterproofing company thousands and even 10s of thousands of dollars to water resistant their basement, and the issue might have been fixed by including or removing some dirt. A great way to test your grade is to simply take a pipe and let it run a few feet from your house. This would imitate a rainstorm. You must now have the ability to see if water enters into your basement due to bad grade.

Seamless gutters dumping their rainwater beside the foundation can trigger another damp basement issue. If the gutters are permitted dump out on the ground near the house, the rainwater might simply make its method into the basement. The water that collects on a roofing system and fails the rain gutters may appear irrelevant. It is in fact the opposite. On a 2,000 square foot domestic house, 1,250 gallons of water are collected on a roofing system with one inch of rain. Now take that much water and picture it discarding best beside your structure. This might be a factor your basement is wet.

Another reason for wet basements may be because of stopped up rain gutter conductor lines. Many individuals realize that they do not want the rain gutters disposing next to their foundation, so they have actually drainage pipes set up for their gutters. The seamless gutter water then is dumped into storm drain or daylights out into the lawn far from their house. This is a great idea, and we advise having them set up by a professional pipes specialist. Nevertheless, when leaves and shingle particles wash down into the conductor lines, they can become clogged. The water then blows out the bottom of the rain gutter due to the fact that it can't stream through the clogged up pipe anymore. If you simply inspect your gutters throughout the next heavy rainstorm, you must have the ability to see if water is bubbling up out of the pipeline against your structure. If you know a plumber with a sewage system cam, then have him do a video assessment of your lines to confirm they are in working condition.

The last and worst issue that triggers wet basements is from ground water. If your basement was integrated in a location with a high water table, there isn't much you can do to stop it from entering your basement due to the fact that it turns up under your floor. Blame the contractor who never ever must have constructed a basement into the ground where high water tables exist. The service? Whenever we can, we recommend not relying on sump pumps. If you have a power outage, and don't have a battery or water powered backup system, then your basement will flood. One choice we have discovered that works incredibly is to run a drain pipe from your sump pump crock out into your lawn somewhere. The drainage pipeline will daytime on top of the ground somewhere. This method the water drain is all based on gravity. Electric may fail and switch off your sump pumps, but gravity will continually carry the water securely far from your basement. Sometimes this is not possible if the basement is lower than the whole surrounding grade, in which case you would need to install a couple sump pumps and figure out a backup system.

Hopefully you have a little much better understanding of damp basements and easy, cost reliable services to fix the water problems. Please utilize discretion prior to calling a company to come and water resistant your entire basement. The problem could be something so very easy and inexpensive to fix."

[peakwealth]

From Kampala: THE BLIND SPOT

Don’t worry, be happy, or is someone to blame for the runaway population in sub-Saharan Africa?

Crowded minibus station in Mbarara, Uganda. (February 2019)

Squeezed into the back seat of a beat up Toyota Corolla with six other passengers (including two small children), it is hard to avoid the issue of demography. Up front, three burly men take up the premium seats while the driver's head is sticking out the window. How he manages to shift gears, I cannot see or imagine. Thus we make it to the next town, two hours away, across the mountains.

At home, I am used to being more or less invisible. Being over sixty-five now, I am part of a rapidly growing demographic. No one pays any attention to me. It's a different story in Africa where the population over sixty-five is vanishingly small. I have curiosity value, all the more so in the back of a shaggy taxi from another century. Even people over fifty are relatively few. The median age in Uganda is just under sixteen years.

Sixteen.

By way of comparison, that figure is almost 27 in India and 37 in China (ageing quickly). Germany is near the top of the European range at 47.1 and Japan maxes out at 47.3. The average for all of Africa is a shade under 20.

What does this mean? It means the majority of Uganda's population is not made up of adults but of children and teenagers, something that is hard for westerners to get their heads around. It means that many girls become mothers at fifteen and grandmothers at thirty. I realized this talking to a young woman in Fort Portal. A five year old boy was wandering nearby. "Is that your son?", I asked. "No, that's Anthony, he's my grandson." I turned around and asked her how old she was: "Thirty-four", she said, giggling.

It means that one generation is piled on top of the previous one, without pause, weighing down society with cascading poverty and a structural lack of prospects. Frustration and inequality go up as ever more young people, connected to the internet as they are anywhere else, see their hopes and ambitions go unrealized.

It also means that pressure on resources and on the land is increasing at an alarming rate. I have no idea what Uganda's ecological carrying capacity might be, but it is an important consideration because most of the population continues to rely on subsistence farming, meaning they need their own plots to grow food. In only ten years’ time the population density has increased from 140 to 230 people/ sq.km. (It stood at 34/sq.km in 1960.) These are not mere 'indicators'. Habitat encroachment is visible to the naked eye as the expansion of housing and subsistence farmland stretches further and further into the distance.

In the end it may not matter if Uganda runs out of resources since it lacks the economic base to support this expanding population to begin with. The economy generates neither sufficient growth nor enough formal, steady employment. Much of the growth is already gobbled up by debt servicing (1). For too many young people there is little real future.

Actual output per person has lagged behind the overall expansion of the economy. Per capita GDP now stands around a sobering USD 700 (in current dollars) or roughly USD 2000 at purchasing power parity (assuming such parity can be calculated in a largely informal economy). That is lower than in Zimbabwe. Kenya, the neighbour to the east, is way ahead with over USD 1500 (in current dollars). Rather than progressing towards becoming an emerging economy, Uganda looks more like a structurally stalling country, held back by demographic incontinence.

Back in 1960, before Uganda became independent from Britain, it had less than 7 million people. It was called the garden of Africa. Today it has 45 million and is projected to reach 106 million by 2050. In 1960 its fertility rate stood at around 7 children; in the nearly sixty years of development since then it has declined by only one child (from 6.95 to 5.82) giving Uganda the second highest rate of population growth in the world (2). This year alone Uganda will add 1,4 million new citizens and that number will rise to two million a year, even as the rate of population growth softens. In polite African company, this is still referred to as the "demographic dividend".

Staggering as the figures are, they are fully matched by what can be observed while travelling around the country. Destitution and idleness remain pervasive. Electrical power from the grid is rare in rural Uganda, as is piped water. Even where power lines exist, people don't have the money to pay for the hookup. Children carrying water in yellow jerrycans are still a defining image of this country (as they are in many African countries). It was a nightmare when I first travelled in East-Africa, decades ago. It continues today as new generations get trapped in poverty, rather than being 'lifted' out of it, and human capital goes to waste.

This does not mean all of Uganda is a mess or there is no progress. There is: literacy and life expectancy are rising (as is a measure of contraception through Marie Stopes centres, among others); basic infrastructure is improving. But at 4 to 6 %, the annual increase in economic output is not enough to catch up with the growing population. Millions of people are standing around, doing little or earning next to nothing as they work the land or do such (hard) labour as pushing bicycles uphill loaded with green bananas or bags of cement. Even the official poverty rate, determined by the Ugandan bureau of statistics and set absurdly low as it is (a daily personal income of a dollar or two), is now actually going up. As elsewhere in the world, growth tends not to be inclusive, meaning that wealth creation for the few (mostly in Kampala) precedes poverty alleviation for the many (in the countryside). Stunning inequality results.

It need not have been like this. The fertility rate in much of South-East Asia used to be almost on par with Africa's but has fallen steadily. By now it is only slightly above replacement level. Not so in Uganda. Ever since he seized power in 1986, Yoweri Museveni, now in his thirty-third year as Uganda's president, has shown little interest in limiting the country's population (3). African insouciance? Dereliction of duty? Sleepwalking towards disaster? Museveni is not alone in having this blind spot. Many domineering African leaders have a weakness for large populations. Some are more upfront about it than others. Last September, Tanzania's president John Magufuli urged women to abandon contraception. There was no need for it, he said.

Not only is fertility deeply rooted in African tradition, large families are a matter of prestige, a patriarchal fantasy.  Women's education, rapid economic progress, urbanization and female empowerment, generally the keys to containing fertility,  have not taken root or not nearly enough to drive home the message: fewer children equals a better life. (4)

Uganda is also overflowing with Christian propaganda, glorifying "the joy of the family". It has been targeted by evangelical fundamentalists from the USA who have poured money into the country to promote their biblical worldview. Eradicating homosexuality has arguably been more part of their agenda than population control.

The results are, by any rational standard, troubling.

Firewood and charcoal market on the shore of lake Victoria in Nakiwogo, Entebbe, Uganda. Both are used for cooking. An orange coloured tray in the foreground sells for 5000 Ugandan shillings (USD 1,36). A small tray costs 2000 shillings. (February 2019)

Rwanda, the tiny neighbour to the south, has a population pushing thirteen million. It prides itself on being the display window of orderly and effective governance in East Africa. And indeed, few if any African countries can match Rwanda for organization, seriousness and just cleanliness. Crawling through Kampala's suffocating traffic jams, the neatness of Kigali is hard to imagine.

Critically, Rwanda has rebounded from the genocide of 1994. Despite being a caricature of colonial, almost farcical Christianity (or maybe because of it?), the country appears to be stable under the no-nonsense presidency of Paul Kagamé. Clever development policies are in evidence. Order prevails. Drivers stop at pedestrian crossings and traffic police hand out fines with printed receipts. Such things are not exactly standard practice in Africa. Yet some of the problems facing Uganda in the future are already perceptible in Rwanda today. The minute you cross the border, you clearly see the much higher pressure on the land. The figures confirm this: Rwanda's population density (520 people /sq. km), is on par with South-Korea's and greater than that of Holland, two of the most densely inhabited (and industrialized) countries in the world. Industrialization is wafer thin in Rwanda, as it is in Uganda.

Progress and sound policies notwithstanding, Rwanda remains a desperately poor country, especially in rural areas. Uncontrolled deforestation, so long a telltale sign of demographic distress, continues as Rwandans (or refugees) cut whatever trees they can get their hands on for firewood or charcoal. As in Uganda, the underlying problem is that Rwanda's economy is not nearly robust enough to provide for all its people. Although the fertility rate has been halved since 1960, it is still a burden. And the gap between the modern, landscaped capital, Kigali, and the shockingly dusty countryside is such that a massive population shift to the big city will be hard to avoid.

In Asia and in Latin America, poverty alleviation converged with a rapid reduction in population growth. One is logically difficult to achieve without the other. This is what facilitated the elimination of extreme poverty in so much of China, in South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. Unfortunately this is not happening in Nigeria, Chad, Niger, the DRC, Uganda...

The problem is not merely one of firewood, or water supply or electricity. Sub-Saharan Africa seems stuck in the same rut as decades ago. Heavy trucks of the UN World Food Program rumble through the towns, the UNHCR, IOM, WHO, USAID shuttle from one refugee camp to the next; global aid agencies like Doctors Without Borders rush medical crews to new emergencies (where they do save countless lives). Both the African Union and the UN are engaged in peacekeeping missions that seem without end.

As slippery as this terrain may appear, the demographic backdrop to Africa's development ailments is hard to ignore. It is the elephant in the room. And the elephant is unlikely to go very far as long as a significant number of African states show little or no interest in containing their runaway populations.

At different levels, both Rwanda and Uganda prefigure the demographic reckoning that awaits Africa and, by ricochet, the world beyond. The pressures to escape poverty and to migrate will exacerbate other challenges already rising across much of Africa: the competition for resources, food security made unpredictable by climate change; regional armed conflicts; theocolonial interference and the ascendency of religious fanaticism including Islamist insurgencies. Those are a few of the issues that are set to rock Africa's boat and dramatically change the face of our planet as the century unfolds.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Factual sources:  tradingeconomics.com; indexmundi.com; CIA Factbook; Uganda Bureau of Statistics (www.ubos.org); World Bank; UNICEF; PricewaterhouseCoopers: Uganda Economic Outlook 2019 ( www.pwc.com/ug/en.html ); The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Goalkeepers Report 2018.

(1) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uganda-economy-gdp/ugandas-economy-must-grow-7-percent-a-year-to-service-rising-debt-central-bank-idUSKCN1HD16S

(2) Niger has the youngest population in the world with a median age of 15.3 years.

(3) Museveni's perspective on Uganda's development can be found on the official presidential website: https://www.yowerikmuseveni.com/address-national-state-affairs

(4) In 2015 Uganda's new National Development Plan (NDP II) called for the reduction of fertility to 4.5 children per woman by 2020. Clearly this target is not being met.

[corbynconstructionltd-blog]

Lean Construction - If Not Now, When?

The Lean Construction Journal at a 2009 white newspaper pegs the proportion of non-value-added or ineffective actions in a normal construction project at 55% to 65%. The white paper-Creating Value: A Sufficient Way to Eliminate Waste in Lean Design and Lean Production goes on to state,"Creating value and only value is the best way to reduce waste in design and construction."

Obviously, the building business is badly broken and needs fixing. How can the industry grow up and meet the challenges of consumer demand for high quality, improved sustainability, and the lack of skilled workers? The very first step would be to cast aside the not invented here syndrome and adopt a time-tested manufacturing solution -the Toyota Production System-commonly called Lean.

Why should construction business managers even consider Lean as a means to better their enterprise? Here are some eye opening facts about the U.S. building business:

60% to 85% of building time is spent fixing errors The typical construction worker operates at 40% efficacy Critical shortages exist in qualified and skilled employees The return on equity for construction pales in comparison to all other U.S. industries Customers are frustrated with poor quality, confrontation, excessive change orders, and scheduling delays These are some of the exact same or similar issues Japanese firms like Toyota confronted in the 1950's. Lean structure might help fix the dire conditions explained previously. While Lean is not any silver bullet, lean construction provides substantial improvements to the issues facing the construction sector. If construction businesses want to flourish in the 21st Century then they ought to proceed toward lean thinking.

Why so Much Waste?

Why so much waste? Construction projects are so fragmented. Many times subcontractors do their work disregarding exactly what they do affect the work of different subcontractors. We call this the"throw it over the wall' mentality. 1 functional section ( in this case subcontractor) finishes its part of the project and throws it on the wall into another section (subcontractor) who throws it back over the wall because it isn't perfect. This mindset sub-optimizes the functioning of the entire project creating quality and schedule problems.

Lean thinking is a fresh method to manage construction. Many men and women object because they think lean is a production strategy and has no program in a"unique" industry like building. The objective of Lean Process Improvement would be to maximize value and eliminate waste using techniques like one-piece circulation, Just-in-time delivery, and stock reduction.

There is a small but growing movement to apply lean principles to construction. Implementing lean principles to building actually means employing them to project direction. This transformation involves mapping your building processes, determining the most effective work flow and establishing a pull method. How can you create a pull system? As a builder you can start by looking at what the completed project should be, and then work backward, identifying each previous step. Downstream procedures determine what the upstream processes will be and when they should take place. Taking this view of the undertaking will allow you to control the work stream. You should also look at creating value flow or process maps of your project support procedures in addition to job processes. Procedures like job setup, estimating, payroll, accounts payable, purchasing, instrument and material management are great candidates for mapping.

The Need for Change

The construction industry is broken and the five details below demonstrate why the industry needs to change:

If it takes six months to construct a home, then 85 percent of the time is spent on two actions: waiting on another trade to appear, and fixing mistakes Clemson's Professor Roger Liska conducted an investigation of productivity on the building business and found that the average construction worker operates at just 40 percent efficacy. Critical shortages of qualified, skilled employees are predicted to just get worse. Despite the building boom of 2006, Business Week's 2007 Investment Outlook Report signaled the return on equity (ROE) for all U.S. businesses was 17.9 percent, while the ROE for the construction sector was a mere 9.7 percent. Industry customers are frustrated with poor quality, confrontation, excessive change orders in volume and dollar value, scheduling delays and litigation. Adding Value

Lean construction concentrates on identifying and delivering services or products where the client/owner places high value. Clients often set high value on:

No or limited shift orders High quality-meaning conformance to requirements/specifications On-time delivery of this job To learn what a specific client values, the contractor must effectively convey, then collaborate, together with the customer to achieve these desired results. When it might be less difficult to take this notion from the negotiated arena, in addition, it works in the highly competitive bid marketplace.

While there are fewer options in the bidding market than in the negotiated environment, there are still numerous ways contractors may add value to the construction process for owners who price the contractor nothing or little. By simply eliminating confrontation and reaching out through improved communication and collaboration, the contractor can considerably increase value for the owner.

Profitability

When contractors center on delivering maximum value to clients, they usually find that profit margins grow. This is not surprising, because in virtually any industry the lowest priced products generally create the smallest gain margin. Consequently, if a builder maintains on price, the contractor is forced into a minimal margin sector of the industry. Industry data affirms the belief that exceptionally aggressive bid markets are the least profitable. Second, since lean construction is about reducing waste, this implies lower costs. Therefore, the builder is under less pressure to reduce its earnings margins. Toyota was able to almost immediately double its productivity. When you think about the average construction worker is functioning at only 40% efficiency, the construction sector should anticipate dramatic improvements. Before blaming the employee, it needs to be noted that Roger Liska's studies revealed that the majority of the missing efficiency was due to poor management-20 percentage results in waiting for materials or supplies, 20 percent results from unsuccessful company procedures and 15 percent results from work rules or congested work areas.

Shortage of Skilled Workers

Another challenge that the industry faces is that a lack of skilled workers. If the business wishes to attract workers, it must alter the perception that building work is undesirable. Again, lean structure is a valuable tool in that battle. Whenever there is a lack of employees, there is a tendency to decrease the job demands to discover additional workers. To make this job, the requirements tend to be revised down so lower skilled workers can qualify. When this works in the brief term, it creates dull tasks that highly skilled employees don't want. Further, this strategy will decrease productivity and increase the downward pressure on wages as wages reflect productivity. Throwing money at a problem is never a solution, but wages are a factor in the equation. Consequently, emphasis needs to be put on improved productivity so tremendously skilled workers can be drawn and salaries increased. This is not a delusion because lean manufacturers have already proved this concept works.

While there are no panaceas, Lean offers significant improvements to the challenges facing the building sector. Those contractors looking to prosper in the 21st century should move toward believing lean to improve their procedures.

The Power of Lean Construction

Lean construction is a systematic application of lean thinking to the design and construction of buildings that do what clients and end-users want-provide price. Evolved over the last 50 decades, lean thinking has revolutionized some parts of manufacturing and is presently easing significant improvements in how service organizations such as hospitals, banks, etc., are fulfilling customer requirements.

Adopting lean thinking demands sustained work over a range of years. There are no immediate solutions. For most people, slim requires a change in the way that they think and the behaviours that support their activities. There are various things that lean organizations do that can be copied -- partnering, supply chain management, value stream analysis, flow, etc. -- but they're only lean when they are done with lean intent. That necessitates lean thinking around the way the company functions.

Not all construction companies accept waste as a essential prerequisite for conducting business. They minimize or eliminate it by using Lean techniques and tools. Some examples of companies using Lean principles and tools to conquer poor quality, poor Shipping and less than leading profits are: Boldt Construction, Linbeck Construction, Mortenson, Sutter health, Veridian Homes, and the Walsh Group

Conclusion

Lean process improvement is not a new idea, but it's relatively new to construction. There are a number of skeptics who believe Lean is a production strategy and isn't suited to the building industry. Many characteristics of the Toyota Production System and other lean tools can and do apply to the building procedure.

Courageous, out-of-the-box believing construction organizations such as Boldt, Turner Construction, and Messer Construction and other people, are leading the way by demonstrating lean process improvement can reduce waste in construction with outcomes mirroring other businesses.

Lean principles hold the promise of reducing or eliminating ineffective actions, costs, and inefficiencies in construction, creating a system that offers value to clients.

[cityofmorgantown]

Is It Important To Have Been Born In Morgantown? No.

I heard a fascinating story today. It goes like this. Jay Redmond and Ron Bane were hanging out at Mundy’s, the bar that Redmond owns in First Ward. They were talking about the City Council election that they had both just badly lost. They were remarking on how awful it was that the city’s voters had overwhelmingly chosen seven councilors who had the audacity to have not been born here.It is tempting to believe that this is merely the one-off grumbling of candidates whose elections went poorly. Or, who knows, maybe it never happened. We hear lots of stories.  But locally born candidates and their supporters have often used being born here as evidence of their inherent worthiness for the job. This claim has been made for years by various candidates. It was tried this year too. Eldon Callen tried it too, pulling the trick at this year’s League of Women Voters Candidates forum. He discussed having been born in a hospital on Willey Street as evidence that he was a native:

“I am a native of Monongalia County. I was born on the fourth floor of Vincent Palotti Hospital. If you know where Vincent Palotti Hospital was, you can consider yourself a native. Because it was a landmark, a lot of people don’t realize it was the first hospital in our county.” 

(Vincent Palotti Hospital, also known as Heiskell Hospital, is obviously no longer there, although some of its remains are being hollowed out by Metro Properties for a new apartment complex. Funny how that works.)   

To be fair, Callen wasn’t the only 2017 candidate to have tried this. Redmond was peddling the same nonsense with his rejoinder that “Special Interests Want Control of Your City Council Stuff” stuff:

We initially focused our coverage on the idea of special interests - as it turns out, Redmond and the candidates he ran with were wholly owned subsidiaries of the city’s predominant special interest, the local landlording industry - but the usage of the italicized “your” here is just as telling. Redmond, after all, was born here, just like Bane, just like Callen. The “your” being referenced are the people who were born here. The underlying assumption twofold: that locals know what is best for the city, and that outsiders don’t.

There is a complicated, scholarly term for this argument: horseshit.

But if you find horseshit unconvincing in its simplicity, here are three better reasons to ignore the idea that where you are born speaks volumes as to how you govern. 

1. The people who make this argument don’t believe it themselves.

If somebody is going to baselessly claim that people from here know better than those who don’t, they cannot also support candidates that are not from here. That would be the rankest of rank hypocrisy. It would also be hugely disingenuous, although given Redmond’s “special interests” stunt above, that shouldn’t be hugely shocking.

For those wondering, although Bane and Redmond and Callen* are from Morgantown (or at least, Bane and Redmond are; if you listen to Callen, he seems to be saying that he is from the county, but not the city itself), Wes Nugent and Bill Graham and Kyle McAvoy are not. The implication that it matters where a candidate is from only matters when it is other candidates, apparently.  

2. There are plenty of people from Morgantown who do NOT agree with this block of candidates.

A very fun thing you can do with your time is to go on various Facebook forums to argue with locals who claim that those who were born here are the ones who know best. Even though they do not actually believe this, as evidenced by the situations above, they will insist that only people from this place can be entrusted with its political institutions. What inevitably happens whenever you have made this incredibly poor decision is that you will run into people who assume that, because you disagree with them, you could not possibly be local. “Locals agree with me,” goes this argument, “and because you don’t agree with me, you must not be local.” The implication is that locals are in lockstep with one another, and that outsiders are the ones on the periphery. 

Here’s the thing about that: plenty of locals are absolutely not in lockstep with one another. Plenty of locals routinely fight it out about what is the best direction for this city (and this county, and this state). Plenty of locals recognize that there is significantly more to this complex world of ours than where you happened to have been born. 

If necessary, reference this website. After all, both of us were born here, went to elementary schools here (that no longer exist), graduated from Morgantown High School, etc. You would very hard-pressed to describe us as often agreeing with the people who make these absurd arguments. And that’s just just us. It should also go without saying that the last electoral cycle seemed to overwhelmingly suggest that local voters were not impressed with allegedly local candidates.   

3. Many of the problems that exist around here are the result of locals. 

But let’s ignore the fact that the people who make this argument don’t actually believe it, and let’s also ignore the fact that locals are not in lockstep with one another. Let’s focus instead on this area’s problems, of which there are many, and which have been created by locals. Here are a few, with a brief explanation:

Infrastructure - Plenty of people bitch incessantly about the traffic, rightly observing that Morgantown was a town built to accommodate a far smaller population. But at every opportunity that the city and county has had to plan for a larger population, they punted. Over and over and over again. It wasn’t outsiders that stood in the way of progressive thinking about what this area’s future might look like. It was recalcitrant locals who stood in the way and said, “No. We like it how it is. Nothing should ever change.”

City Limits - Morgantown’s city boundaries are some of the dumbest things you’ll ever lay eyes on. Half of the people who think they live in Morgantown actually live beyond the city’s borders, owing to inexplicable line drawing done by, you guessed it, locals. As a result, there are functionally two Morgantowns: the place we understand Morgantown to be, and the place the lines actually define. It is an absurdly stupid thing, and almost impossible to fix. 

Declining Neighborhoods - In the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, Morgantown did absolutely nothing to protect neighborhoods from predatory landlords. As a result, numerous neighborhoods - including all of Sunnyside, most of University Hill, parts of Wiles Hill, Woodburn, and Evansdale -  were overrun with rental properties, as families abandoned what had once been perfectly liveable places. They sought places where students weren’t and what was left behind fell into sharp decline. Only in recent years, as high-density housing has begun to be built, has the rental spread slowed. 

Neighborhood Schools - Widespread school consolidation hasn’t helped things either. Whereas once neighborhoods each had their own elementary schools - First Ward, Second Ward, Central, Evansdale, Suncrest, Wiles Hill, Woodburn, Sabraton, Easton, Westover, etc - there are now consolidated schools ringing the city. These schools were the only solution in the face of an electorate that would not support attempts to maintain what infrastructure the schools had. Only Suncrest was spared this particularly cruel axe, something we have written about in the past. These were local decisions incidentally, made overwhelmingly by locals.  

Conclusion

What are we to conclude from this? The most obvious conclusion is that that appeals to locality are, at their heart, complete and utter nonsense. Those who make this argument never mean it as a universal standard, but rather, only as a convenient political cudgel to be wielded when conditions are right. But the bigger issue is that locals have, at the very barest minimum, screwed up far more around here than any outsider candidate (or candidates) ever have. Why on earth we would ever pretend that this isn’t the case is positively beyond me, except that maybe blaming outsiders makes us feel better about our own political shortcomings. 

The point is this: it really does not matter at all where you are from. It matters what you do once you’re in office. We have seen and suffered what happens when people born here are in charge. We have done that for decades. A few years of candidates who weren’t born here - but who choose to live here, and who, by all accounts, love the place enough to want to be on its city council - should be given the chance to do what they were elected to do without having their bonafides questioned on the basis of where they were born.

[anthonybialy]

Afflict the Afflicted

At a time when America needs a hero, we get George Costanza. The pretend architect, marine biologist, and latex salesman should've been a real journalist, as it's the one profession where he would've kept his job. Using his inevitable Pulitzer in a fruitless attempt to pick up women would've been an episode more about the prize's lack of value than his own scheming.

We couldn't invent more dishonest media that boasts more about how honest it is.  There's good news if they need examples for a trend story about how horrid they are.  Journalists versus Donald Trump is our Iran/Iraq War.  Any half-decent news organization could make a reputation and fortune by detailing his misdeeds.  So, forget it.

By presuming its existence is crucial to the nation's health, the media fails to do actual work.  A field that attracts those too lazy for the post office slacks even more than usual.  They figure the president will do the heavy lifting.  But learning to do a push-up is too much exertion for those who think of tweeting as exercise.

Calling the media sanctimonious is the sort of understatement that illustrates our language's limits.  But the lack of English superlatives is only part of the problem.  It's sort of their job to check facts.  Instead, they devote their meager working hours to compiling every maniacal rumor and hateful assumption.  Let the readers sift through obviously incorrect salaciousness, because that's what the job is.  Fellow journalists replying sympathetically offers double-checking insisted upon by editors.

It's best to presume hacks are having a contest to see who can preen the most about truth while getting basic details wrong.  Assume they're not merely this spectacularly incompetent out of undeserved kindness. Getting it wrong so obviously and consistently won't deter them from presuming the next unsourced Russian hooker story has to be accurate. You couldn't parody this media thanks to how horribly they perform compared to how they see themselves.  But you try getting ahead of mockery.

Typically evenhanded reporters know everyone who's not a liberal is a bigoted troglodyte who probably dines at Olive Garden.  It's easy to be unbiased while viewing everyone who votes differently as evil. Wholly objective profession members are for moderate single-payer health care and command economies.  It's no surprise that innate statists don't distinguish between government action and editorial decisions.

The difference between the First Amendment and individual outlets going on the president's naughty list embodies limitations on federal power.  So, that's why they don't understand.  A person who was too intimidated by numbers to major in engineering can't distinguish between compulsion and the unwillingness of the subject to cooperate. Not grasping what private parties are free to do actually explains present circumstances pretty well.

I'd suspect the press was secretly helping Trump if they were capable of being clever.  Creating sympathy for a president they loathe who doesn't deserve it is probably not an editorial goal.  But it's furthered with every insane charge they figure is too juicy to be verified.  If it's a candidate who these virtuous paragons of democracy and decency didn't back, he must be as rotten as they think.

Instead of liking people, we turn to those our enemies hate.  It's as inspirational as you'd figure.  I'm reluctant to support anyone out of backlash, but that's all the incumbent's getting from me.  Trump's greatest sours of support comes from those backing the president out of solidarity in opposition to media twerps who think warning of fascism holds him accountable.  He'll say something atrocious tomorrow that'll actually deserve headlines, and correspondents have already blown their credibility.  If you want to know why everyone's cranky, note the exhaustion caused from from constantly being at DEFCON 1.  The public has trained itself to ignore the sirens.

Our informational guardians ruined the chance to criticize legitimately. So, that's why they despise the free market.  Their public hysteria ruins the supremely easy chance to tease our president.  Heck, I do it all the time, and I'm as far from a professional as imaginable. Their assumption they're interrogating a racist monster sent to destroy a country that finally got Obamacare makes them sound as demented as their target.  Nobody watching can tell who's truly Supreme Ruler of the sanitarium common room.

A free press is swell, so anyone affiliated must be a hero of communication, right?  It's true except for how most of them make trash fires seem pleasant by comparison.  A media that can't get simple facts right about a ridiculous president also fails to realize the difference between the media in general and any specific outlet. An industry whose employees very evenhandedly presume every evil business should be regulated by enlightened bureaucrats thinks a confrontational press conference means the government interferes too much.

Criticizing any particular crummy dispatch is portrayed as an assault.  Stop tearing up the Bill of Rights by noting the Washington Post gets it wrong quite a bit for being such snots.  You'd think they'd read the Amendment they bluster about and learn the first word is “Congress.”

Purported arbiters of truth also happen to be fans of government doing everything, an assumption baked into their unfortunate coverage.  Any beat stenographer who asks, say, how to pay for tax cuts or obtain health care without being required to purchase insurance makes mocking about bias easy.  It's little wonder English majors can't distinguish between a press secretary skipping reporters he loathes or refusing to buy the New York Times as a rights violation.  Liberal journalists naturally see everything as communal: that means they're not responsible for the crummy content any individual spews.  Blame the media.