#welfare society

[ifoughttime]

You folks would be happy to know that the Government of Karnataka, a state in India made all their public bus fare free for ALL women residents of the state. The upside of this was they saw a surge of women travellers, especially rural women to tourist places they never had access to before! The program has been launched for nearly 8 months and the number of women passengers has not gone down.

They witnessed it was easier for more women to take up job opportunities outside of their hometowns because they have access to travel without spending a chunk of their paychecks on travel fares.

THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[thenotebonthepiano]

rip regulus black you would definitely join the S.P.E.W.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Sometimes I think about how when I was a little kid, I got an advertisement in the mail from HSUS asking people to write their state congresspeople about banning horse slaughter in the United States. Had a beautiful picture of a horse running wild and free on the envelope and provided a template to follow.

Little me wrote my representative, and I even got a response assuring me that they would support the bill. It ended up passing, and yay we saved the horsies!

Then I grew up and got a job in vet medicine, and was told by an experienced equine vet how because of that bill, horses whose owners either can’t or won’t have them euthanized will be sold to slaughter operations in Canada or Mexico, necessitating them to be transported sometimes hundreds of miles by trailer instead of being granted a swift, merciful death—which they often desperately need. One they would have if humane slaughter of horses was still legal in the United States.

So when I think about the HSUS backing the SWIMS Act, I get scared. Because somewhere out there, there’s going to be a sweet little kid who just loves animals writing their representative, asking them to save the whales. Without realizing they’re only making things worse.

[queerism1969]

[tanadrin]

[epistemic status: a bunch of semi-related thoughts I am trying to work out aloud] It has been noted countless times that reactionary politics rely on a feeling of threat: our enemies are strong and we are weak (but we are virtuous and they are not, which is why they’re our enemies!); we must defend ourselves, we must not be afraid of doing what needs to be done; we must not shie away from power generally, and violence specifically.

And there are lots of contexts--like when talking about the appeal of reactionary politics in the US before and at the beginning of Trump’s rise to prominence, or when talking about hard-on-crime policies that are a springboard to police militarization, or (the central example of all this in the 21st century) the post 9/11 PATRIOT-act terrorism paranoia that was a boon to authoritarians everywhere, and spurred a massive expansion of both control and surveillance in everyday life--where critics of reactionary rhetoric are chastised for their failure to appeal to the other side, because they come off as callous towards their concerns and their real fears and anxieties.

And while this might not be strategically correct, frankly, I think there’s a sense in which it is justified to be callous towards those concerns. Because those concerns are lies. They may be lies borne out of a seed of real experience (9/11 did happen, of course), but the way that seed is cultivated by focused paranoia, by contempt toward cultivating any sense of proportionality or any honest comparison of risk, the way it is dragooned into the service of completely orthogonal political goals (”the CIA/NSA/FBI must be able to monitor all private communications everywhere in the world, just in case it might prevent another 9/11″) chokes off any possible sympathy I might otherwise feel. American paranoia about another couple thousand lives being lost in a 9/11 like event resulted in a number of deaths literally multiple orders of magnitude larger in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the former, some years Iraq was suffering the equivalent of six or seven 9/11s a year.

So, any fear-driven policy must not (for example) say “to prevent disaster X happening again, we’re going to make it happen 270 times over to someone else.” That’s not reasonable. And “fear is a bad basis for crafting policy” is not exactly a revolutionary observation. There’s that probably-apocryphal story of a Chinese professor responding to Blackstone’s Ratio--you know, “better that ten guilty persons go free than one innocent person suffer”--with “better for whom?” Which is supposed to be this trenchant and penetrating question that makes you reexamine your assumptions. But it’s always struck me as idiotic. Better for society! For everyone! Because the law only functions well if it is seen as a source of order and justice, not as an authoritarian cudgel; because a society in which anxiety drives policymaking and legal responses to social ills is one that is in the process of actively devouring itself; because flooding the public discourse with language that dehumanizes criminals and makes it easy to separate the individual from universal principles like civil rights is an acid that destroys the social fabric.

Fear as a germ of reactionary politics manifests itself in lots of ways outside of both historical examples, like fascism, or more recent examples, like US foreign policy during the war on terror. Fear and its link to purity-attitudes, with a low level of scientific literacy in general, drives stuff like the organized anti-vaccine movement. In the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram of political tendencies, I’d argue it’s a big factor in the wellness-to-Qanon track. It’s a big part of tough-on-crime rhetoric, which in the American instance in particular also draws on an especially racialized form (cf. the “Willie Horton” ad). Fear and purity and anti-contamination anxieties are even big in opposition to nuclear power, because most of the public just has a really bad sense of what the comparative dangers of nuclear vs fossil fuel are; and because the former has been culturally salient since 1945 in a way the latter hasn’t, nuclear contamination feels much more threatening than fossil fuel waste, despite by any measurable harm the latter causing far worse problems, even before you factor in any risks from climate change.

I would like to argue in particular that true crime as an entertainment genre, and wellness culture, and fears about child abuse all contribute to reactionary politics--they are in themselves major reactionary political currents--in a way that cuts across the political spectrum because they are not strongly marked for political factionalism. A lot of the rhetoric both from and around true crime entertainment promotes the idea that violent crime exists, or at least can flourish, because of an insufficiently punitive attitude toward crime; one that can only be fixed by centering victims’ desire (or putative desire) for retribution in the legal process, by eroding the civil rights of the accused, and by giving the police and prosecutors more power. Obviously, this is just 80s and 90s tough on crime rhetoric repackaged for millennials; it centers individual experience a bit more and deemphasizes the racial component that made the “Willie Horton” ad so successful, but it posits that there is only one cause for crime, a spontaneous choice by criminals that has no causal relationship with the rest of the world, and only one solution, which is authoritarianism.

Wellness culture leverages purity concerns and scientific illiteracy in ways which are so grifty and so transparently stupid that it’s by far the least interesting thing on this list to me; its most direct harm is in giving an environment for the anti-vaccine movement to flourish, and I’m always incredibly annoyed when people talk about how the medical establishment needs to do more to reassure the public about vaccines’ safety and efficacy. Again, strategically, this may be correct; people dying of preventable disease is really bad. But doctors as a body didn’t promote Andrew Wakefield’s nonsense; doctors as a body didn’t run breathless article after breathless article about vaccines maybe causing autism; doctors as a body didn’t scare the bejezus out of folks in the 90s and then act all surprised when preventable childhood diseases started breaking out all over the place.

Although outside the whole anti-vax thing, I think there are lots of other harms that wellness culture creates. It tends to be fairly antiscientific; in order to sell people nonsense (because as a subculture it exists almost exclusively to sell people things) it has to discredit anything that might point out that it is selling nonsense. Whether the anti-intellectualism that flourishes in these quarters is a result of intentional deceit or just a kind of natural rhetorical evolution probably varies. But it is an important component of wellness culture to be able to play a shell game between “big pharma doesn’t have your best interests at heart,” “you don’t need your anti-depressants,” and “laetrile cures cancer.”

The way in which fears of child abuse are turned into a reactionary political cudgel probably actually annoys me the most; whether it’s Wayfair conspiracy theories, conservatives trying to turn “groomer” into an anti-queer slur, or just antis on tumblr, the portrayal of sadistic sexual threat aimed at children from an outside malevolent force is compelling only because the vast majority of child abuse and CSA comes from within families and within culturally privileged structures of authority like churches, and this fact makes everyone really uncomfortable, and no one wants to talk about it. I remember getting really annoyed during the Obama years when the White House wanted to talk about bullying and anti-LGBT bullying in particular, while studiously avoiding blaming parents and teachers in any way for it, despite the fact that all the coming out horror stories I know are from people’s parents turning on them.

Now, very conservative politics have always opposed dilution of a kind of privilege for the family structure; they envision a family structure which is patriarchal, and so dilution of this privilege is dilution of the status of patriarch. Very insular communities which cannot survive their members having many options or alternative viewpoints available to them, including controlling religions but also just abusive parents who want to retain control over their kids, also bristle at the idea of any kind of general society-wide capacity for people to notice how parents treat their children. But beyond that, I think our society still treats parents as having a right of possession over their children and their children’s identities, especially when they’re young, and bolsters that idea with an idea that the purity of children is constantly under threat from the outside world, and it is the parents’ job to safeguard that purity. The result is the nuclear family as a kind of sacred structure which the rest of society has no right to observe or pry open; and this is a massive engine of enabling the abuse of children. To no other relationship in our society do we apply this idea, that it should be free from “interference” (read: basic accountability) from the rest of society.

Moreover, the idea of childhood as a time of purity and innocence, which not only must be protected from but during which children must be actively lied to about major aspects of how the world works, is one of the last ways remaining to an increasingly secular culture to justify censorious and puritanical Victorian morality. It is hard to advocate for censorship to protect the Morals of the Christian Public, when nobody believes in the Morals of the Christian Public anymore; but “think of the children!” still works as a rallying cry, because of this nagging sense we have that age-appropriate conversations with children about adult topics will cause them to melt or explode.

In many ways, these anxieties on behalf of theoretical children are the ones I am most contemptuous of. Not because child abuse isn’t a serious problem--it is--but because the vector imagined for it is almost entirely opposite the one it actually tends to occur along. People who pretend that the primary danger to children is from strangers are usually woefully misinformed; people who pretend it is from media are either idiots or liars seeking a cover for their craving for censorship.

In conclusion: while it’s not possible to exorcise all our neuroses from our politics, anymore than we will ever exercise all our neuroses from our aesthetics, there are some we should be especially on guard against. A sense of threat, and anxieties which tie into concerns about purity and fears of contamination, are two big ones. These produce policies that are not only badly correlated with the outcomes they ostensibly want, but actually and severely destructive to them, in the same way that invading Iraq was actively destructive to any notion of preventing terrorism, saving American or Iraqi lives, or promoting political stability in the Middle East. And we should hold in healthy suspicion anybody whose politics seem to be driven by similar neuroses. Some merely believe very harmful things. Some are actually actively deceptive. None will achieve any of the higher aims they claim as justification for their beliefs.

[swordmaid]

think cannibalism should be a thing in menzoberranzan actually, or maybe it is and I haven’t known about it, but it should be a thing amongst the nobles where they eat rival lolth priestesses since they’re lolth’s fave sacrifices anyway. like if we’re all constantly vying for lolth’s approval, and you have these people who actually has her blessing (which is rare) why not….eat them….😳. like eating the priestess of a rival house would be a ritual after you’ve succeeded in bringing their house down as a way to consume lolth’s blessing, and its def an intimidation tactic and def one of the plenty weird shit nobles have done for the sake of playing their power games. maybe they eat males who are in power too if they’ve overstepped their position to remind them of their place in the hierarchy, or maybe matriarchs/nobles eat their favourite bed mate/partner so no one else can have them, kind of like actual spiders. anyway. if menzoberranzan is this immoral lethal and ruthless place cannibalism should def be a thing lol

[lyriumrain]

Frustrates me to no end that employed people think I'm just.... having the time of my life being unemployed. They see all my "free time" and think I'm just.... sipping champagne by beach all day every day or something. I've had a clinical psychologist say that "if he had all that free time he'd write a book"

-_-

[mrkmciver]

#Predatory Capitalism

[nando161mando]

Wage raises

[isawthismeme]

[fluoritegalaxy]

Everything wrong with America today is Ronald Reagan's fault, and here's why. (Yes, this video has a couple cringey moments when they try to crack a joke, but the rest is highly informative.)

Trickledown economics was his idea. He applied the same thought process was applied to healthcare-- "competition will breed efficiency!" Not realizing that corners will be cut to keep costs down.

Cutting funding to social welfare programs and funding the police instead? His idea. He's also the creator of the horribly racist, "Welfare Queen," and the mentality that social welfare programs, like food stamps, would only encourage people to feed off of the system.

The AIDS epidemic was his fault-- he failed to adequately handle it, and didn't speak about it for four years. Imagine if Covid or even H1N1 had gone on that long before anyone did anything about it! He ignored it because he genuinely believed it was an act of God to wipe out gay people.

The student loan crisis? Reagan believed that higher education should be a luxury for the rich. He believed colleges shouldn't offer free education, saying they should instead offer student loans, and passed state tax cuts designed to subsidize higher education.

He tried to get rid of the Pell Grant-- designed to help students based on their financial standing.

Academic advisor to Reagan, Roger Freeman, is quoted as saying, "we are in danger of producing an educated proletariat... We have to be selective on who we allow to go through higher education."

We have Reagan to thank for the return of union busting after he fired over 11,000 air traffic control workers while on strike.

We need to start acknowledging all of the mistakes Reagan made if we *ever* want this country to change properly.

[gregor-samsung]

The Swedish Theory of Love (Erik Gandini, 2015)

[looking-at-the-deiwos]

Aryomḗn

Or as I write it Aryomén. Also found as Háryomēn (with a hard h like the ch in loch) or H₂eryo-men. His name means something like "the God of how we do things"

Aryomén is the god of peace, law, contracts, trade, roads, marriage, healing and social order. He is the god of the Dhḗtis, the norms that society has put in place in order for harmony to exist between humans. This stands in contrast to Dyéus, who presides over the Ártus, the cosmic natural law of the universe.

Aryomén enforces justice, contracts and oaths. He presides over the orderly and successful continuation of society. He is a special patron of lawyers, but also of all those others who contribute to the infrastructure of society: road workers, sewage cleaners, bus drivers, etc.

Áryomen also is a patron of roads, marriage and healing, as institutions helpful in restoring and fostering welfare in society.

Offerings

taken from here

Hoberman sphere

other structures of individual parts with connections, especially flexible ones

stone circle

grove or personal seal

braid of white, red, and black cords (three functions: white - priestly, red - warrior, black - producers)

symbols of law, like the scales held by the goddess Justice.

White, red, and black beads

Devotional acts

Speak your mind and be honest in all your dealings

Help to solve conflicts, either of yourself or others

Learn about the laws of your country

Vote if you can

Stay up to date on local politics

Support local activism groups

Volunteer in or support welfare programs

Associations

White, red and black

Gold (UPG)

Justice

Marriage

Healing

Roads

Infrastructure

September

Thursday

Descendants in later pantheons

Aryaman (Vedic)

Airyaman (Iranic)

Érimón (Celtic)

Ariomanus (Celtic)

[orcinus-veterinarius]

I'm so sick of the cetacean community right now. A Bigg's orca (I believe T109A3 Spong) stranded & passed away yesterday, leaving her two year old calf behind. I got into an argument with the Orca Behavior Institute over whether the calf should be rescued & rehabbed by humans, but they said that it could risk permanently spending the rest of its life "in captivity." Frustrated, I called them out on preferring to let a baby whale starve to death than live in human care & I literally got harassed by their followers. One even called me a troll. The point is that I'm fed up with them & I was wondering if there are other organizations out there that I can support who work to protect & study wild orcas without having such a radical bias against captivity?

I hear you. I have not commented on this situation yet because it truly appalls me. To be clear, I don't think there's a need yet for human intervention beyond getting the calf into open water so it can reunite with its mother's pod. At two years old, this isn't a Toa situation, and the little one should theoretically be able to survive if extended family members adopt it. If worst comes to worst, a temporary sea pen (as was done with A73 Springer) would be a better solution than permanent captivity, since this calf is healthy and is from a known pod (unlike Morgan, who was neither).

Keeping wild animals wild is everyone's priority, and marine parks aren't just sitting around greedily rubbing their hands together waiting to swoop in and make a quick buck. In fact, taking the calf into human care would be the opposite of a quick buck, but that's not the conversation here. If the calf fails to reunite with its pod in time or its condition deteriorates, more extreme human intervention may be necessary for its survival. Again, I don't think that will happen, but if it did... certain groups will advocate for the calf to be left to starve. Because any whale is "better dead than fed" (yes, people unironically say this). And they're proud of that belief.

My favorite Salish Sea organization is SR3 (Sealife Response + Rehab + Research), and I highly recommend checking them out. Another good one is the SeaDoc Society, which is actually affiliated with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

[wafflinglumos]

Hermione Granger, Regulus Black, and house elf injustice.

Hermione Granger and Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, or, S.P.E.W, and the bad execution of it.

Hermione saw house elves as equal, she saw the lack of care in their jobs, the lack of holidays and pay, the lack of care or the house elves, and tried to free them from that, in a rather emotionally charged way and maybe with not the best execution, however, she cared and was a fourteen-fifteen year old girl who saw injustice, who faced the same injustice from the same Wizarding world, and wanted to fix it in the only way that she could that worked.

She cared for their justice, she worked tirelessly to achieve it and for the most part she had eventually achieved. While she may favour some house elves over others do to personal relationships with them we can actively see Hermione’s care for house elf rights as a whole. Made badges, petitions, etc etc. While you could argue it was done poorly, she again was a teenage girl who saw an injustice and wanted to fix it, which with by the time she was Minister, she had.

However, again, she was a terribly flawed activist, lovely idea, very, very poor execution. Her heart was in the right place, sure, and she was much more new to this than Ron, so yes her immediate attempts at helping them were in the right, but the execution was rather terrible. We do get to see her eventually go at in a better way. Still good idea, bad execution.

Regulus Black and superiority.

Regulus didn’t care for house elves as a whole, or at the very least, we have no evidence to support that, we have in fact, the exact opposite. Regulus supported Voldemort on a much deeper level compared to his parents, his parents got cold feet, and Regulus continued to support him, had a shrine of him, worshipped him if anything. He thoroughly believed in Voldemort’s beliefs, as did his parents. Regulus Arcturus Black was a Death Eater.

He was also however a Black, first and foremost, which is what I think is most likely what drove to his betrayal. Voldemort had wounded Kreacher and left him for dead, Kreacher would technically be “property” of the house of Black, so Voldemort hurting something so brutally that Regulus deemed as his probably was the driving force that drove to his betrayal. Regulus still had those pureblood beliefs, realistically speaking, so it wasn’t because he suddenly started thinking muggleborns were equal or that muggles should even exist.

He still loved his mother if that’s anything to go by, as Regulus was ordered not to tell as to not harm his family, it’s not specified if Orion was included as he died the same year as Regulus but it’s not stated if it was before or after, and Sirius had been disowned and was an order member so it also did not include him. This also furthers pushes Regulus’ still belief in Voldemort’s belief but no longer his cause.

Muggleborn vs Pureblood.

Hermione’s care for house elves as a whole versus Regulus’ care for only Kreacher, can be pinned down to various things in their characters, but I’m going to point out the major one. Hermione is a muggleborn, and Regulus was a wealthy pureblood. Hermione knew of the scrutiny in the wizarding world, but Regulus had participated in it.

Regulus wouldn’t have loved SPEW, maybe wouldn’t have hated it but surely wouldn’t have loved it, definitely wouldn’t have cared for Hermione.

Hermione cared about house elves and justice, and Regulus cared for his family. That is what makes their relationship with house elves different.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

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