#Defence of Capitalism

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Unemployment relief delivered by the government in minuscule amounts, The Worker. July 3, 1933.

#toronto #canadian labor defence league #unemployment relief #poverty relief #capitalism in crisis #unemployment #starve or freeze #bennett government #communists #great depression in canada #political cartoons #editorial cartoons

[nando161mando]

#antifascism #self defense #self defence moves #self defence techniques #self defence classes #161 #1312 #antifascist #antifaschistische aktion #antinazi #antiauthoritarian #class war #eat the rich #eat the fucking rich #anti capitalism #anticapitalista #anti capitalist love notes #ausgov #politas #auspol #tasgov #taspol #australia #fuck neoliberals #neoliberal capitalism #anthony albanese #albanese government #anarchism #anarchist #anarchocommunism

[reasoncourt]

i just don’t think people who say taylor swift isn’t talented are serious people. like you can argue that she got to where she is because of her parent’s money and her white privilege etc. that’s totally true. and you can argue that there are many super talented artists who remain in obscurity for their whole career despite being absolutely way ahead of the game and more deserving of worldwide renown. all that can be true. and it’s worth having discourse about. but you lose me when you point to someone who is so clearly talented and say “she’s mediocre”. because she is obviously not mediocre. like idk. it just bugs me. because i think there are so many valid criticisms to make about people like taylor swift but it gets goofy when you call her talent into question

#i’m getting goofy in my taylor swift defence era #but tbf #like everything else u can criticise absolutely #but why does everyone get stuck on questioning talent #like it’s just. stupid #argue about her politics or her climate inaction or her devotion to capitalism #like whatever #but girl clearly has talent cmon #you aren’t that popular for that long and make that many pivots in your music if you don’t have talent #is she the most creative musician around? no. is she an innovator in the music space? no. #but there are many facets of talent when it comes to artists/performers #and she obviously has her finger on the pulse and can write a goddamn song #and her concerts are unforgettable even if ur not a fan #like idk. i just think people lack nuance in their discussion of her #and it frustrates me cause like #i agree with u until u get goofy and obviously just hate her #THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD POINTS TO MAKE so why aren’t you making them

[journey-to-the-attic]

Thinking about Zhaoxi again my favourite silly wet man.

He'd be so proud of his daughter, I like to think. But also terrified for her safety.

I think instead of attacking Belphie or Diavalo straight away (aunt Lisa is on it though don't worry) , he kinda just holds IK for a long time. And they just?? Sit together for a long time and talk. Because IK deserves that parental love after everything.

they’d have to drip-feed the information about all that happened during ik’s exchange year, because if they told him everything at once i feel like he’d have like three consecutive heart attacks

jokes aside yes!! zhaoxi is not a fighter by any means but he will be there for his kid now. feel like finding out about everything would be a big enough shock to the system that he finally realises how little time he’s actually had with ik despite loving his daughter so so much

#answering asks #anon asks #he has not done the greatest job so far but it's okay #he learns to make amends and be a better dad in general #though in his defence it's been tricky overall since they kinda need to eat and have a roof over their heads #capitalism is the root issue here tbh (but when is it not) #anyway after ik comes home (possibly with help from solomon and/or diavolo? and definitely with support from aunt lisa) #things definitely start changing for the better #slow progress though since there's emotional baggage to be dealt with too #but we'll be seeing that once we get to that bridge to cross it!

[fellhellion]

I’ve nearly finished AG and im already having some…worries…about Claude’s characterisation

#mmmm im going to hold off on hard stances until I play GW but it feels very strange to have CLAUDE of all characters go well you’re the one #who always wants to save everyone vs me who’ll get things done #when like. claude is DEFINED by his inaction in non GD routes specifically because he doesn’t want to risk tearing his own nation apart and #weakening them #not to mention he’s the character #I would call the least willing to have blood on his hands #dimitri is tortured by his own compassion and yet feels beholden to the dead #edelgard will not - CANNOT - look back lest she waver in her resolve #and claude barricades the capital behind him and stakes his LIFE on its defence regardless of what happens to him #he bargains on being able to sway byleth yes but he’s prepared to die for a nation that was constantly doubting him #I ​just don’t know…. #tunes talks fe3hopes #3 hopes spoilers

[readingwriter92]

within exactly like 2 mins of starting hudson and rex and i have to spend five mins googling bc i thought the show was set in canada but then proceed to be a bad canadian forgetting both whether newfoundland is the island or the part attached to quebec and where the fuck st John's vs st john is

#so from what ive found newfoundland is the island - which is what i thought thank you very much #but that st john is in new brunswick so #in my defence knew they both were in the maritimes #look so i look like i know anything about geography #bc the answer is no #i usually misplace where nunavut and NW territories goes despite knowing where iqaluit is okay #i can name the provinces/territories and capitals thats it #i can remember whats that- 26 names?

[whoxohm]

#shhh

#I support the Pentagon (Polygon)

#polygonics (in house) rap

#The BLUTOPIA POWER PAC

# The Passenger Pigeon Party. (Now inc)

www.WHOXOHM.com

#dc #government #electricity #electric cars #electric vehicles #wall street #pol #news #environment #energy #chocolate #politics #governo #governance #magic #pentagon #I support the pentagon #math #mathematics #calculus #defence #national #states #capital #poll #art #artists on tumblr #us elections #republican #nra

[saynaija]

Insecurity: FCT NSCDC Commandant Charges Personnel On Intelligence

Insecurity: FCT NSCDC Commandant Charges Personnel On Intelligence The Commandant of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command, Olusola Odumosu, has charged officers and men of the Command to engage in active intelligence gathering to tackle the current security challenges in the territory. He gave this charge during a briefing with personnel at…

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#Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command #Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) #Olusola Odumosu

[theculturedmarxist]

In 2020, Robert Kuciemba, a woodworker in San Francisco was infected with covid by a co-worker after his Nevada-based Victory Woodworks transferred a number of sick workers to the San Francisco site for a few months. 

Through the proceedings of the case it turns out that the employer knew some employees might be sick but they transferred them anyway and ignored a San Francisco ordinance in place at the time to quarantine suspected covid cases.

Kuciemba was subsequently infected and he then infected his wife, who ended up in ICU on a ventilator.

The California Supreme Court just ruled against Kuciemba on the basis that a victory, while, in the court's words, "morally" the right thing to do, would create "dire financial consequences for employers" and cause a "dramatic expansion of liability" to stop the spread of covid.

There’s a few stunning details to note in this case. First, the court agreed that there is no doubt the company had ignored the San Francisco health ordinance. In other words, they accepted the company had broken the law. And then concluded “yeah, but, capitalism.”

Secondly, the case was so obviously important to the struggle between capitalism and mass infection that the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying organisation got involved and helped the company with its defence. Remember, this is a tiny company in a niche industry. The involvement of the biggest business lobbyists in the country tells us a lot about the importance of the principle they knew was at stake.

Thirdly, the defence of the company is very telling. They said “There is simply no limit to how wide the net will be cast: the wife who claims her husband caught COVID-19 from the supermarket checker, the husband who claims his wife caught it while visiting an elder care home." 

Well, exactly. Capitalism couldn’t survive if employers were liable for covid infections contracted in the workplace, and the ripple effect of those infections. And they know it. 

This case is something of a covid smoking gun, revealing what we always suspected but had never seen confirmed in so many words: the public health imperative of controlling a pandemic virus by making employers liable for some of that control is, and always must be, secondary to capitalist profit. 

This ruling is also saying out loud what has been obvious to anyone paying attention for the last two years: employers don’t have a responsibility to keep your family safe from covid. You have that responsibility. And if you give a family member covid that you caught at work and they get sick or die – even if it was a result of law-breaking by your employer – that’s on you buddy.

It is the same old capitalist story: the shunting of responsibility for ills that should be shared across society, including employers in that society, onto individuals.

This ruling essentially helps codify workplace mass infection and justifies it as necessary for the smooth functioning of capitalism.

This is not new. This is where the ‘just a cold’ and the ‘mild' narrative came from. It came from doctors and healthcare experts whose first loyalty was to capitalism. Not to public health. To money, not to lives. Abetted by media who uncritically platformed them.

While this ruling tells us little that we couldn’t already see from the public policy approach of the last two years, it is revealing (and to some extent validating) to see it confirmed by the highest law of the land in the United States. 

#covid 19 #capitalism #eugenics #class war

[opencommunion]

"Israel expects support from western capitals because they have nearly as much to fear from a verdict against Israel as Israel itself. They have staunchly backed the killing spree, with the US and UK, in particular, sending weapons that are being used against the people of Gaza, making both potentially complicit.

According to a cable from the Israeli foreign ministry, leaked to the Axios website, Israel hopes that, given the difficulties of making a legal case in defence of its actions, diplomatic and political pressure on the court’s justices will win the day instead. ... Israel’s 'strategic goal' at the court, according to the leaked cable, is to dissuade the judges from making a determination that it is committing genocide. But more pressing is Israel’s need to prevent the Hague court from ordering an interim halt to the attack. ... The purpose of South Africa’s case is not to arbitrate what happens once Israel has annihilated the Palestinians of Gaza, as far too many observers appear to imagine. It is to stop Israel from annihilating the people of Gaza before it is too late. Based on strange logic, Israel’s supporters imply that the genocide charge is unwarranted because the real aim is not to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza but to induce them to flee. ... The International Court of Justice must not adopt a wait-and-see approach, pondering whether Israel’s bombing campaign and siege lead to extermination or 'only' ethnic cleansing. That would strip international humanitarian law of all relevance.

If Israel and its western allies fail to bludgeon the court into submission, and South Africa’s case is accepted, it will not only be Israel in legal difficulties. 

A genocide ruling from the court will impose obligations on other states: both to refuse to assist in Israel’s genocide, such as by providing arms and diplomatic cover, and to sanction Israel should it fail to comply.

An interim order halting Israel’s attack will serve as a line in the sand. Once made, any state that fails to act on the injunction risks becoming complicit in genocide. 

That will put the West in a serious legal bind. After all, it has not just been turning a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza; it has been actively cheering it on and colluding in it. ... The truth is that a genocide ruling by the court will open up a can of worms for the West, and its readiness to accept that the provisions of international law apply to it too."

#palestine #imperialism #library

[tikkunolamresistance]

Zionism has taught Jews that we are ontologically different from the rest of humanity and collective community. Instilled within us that our only claim to safety, the only true way we can be undoubtedly safe, was through the existence of a quasi-Religious, ethno-nationalist state strictly dictated by the Zionist project. That the self-determination of Jews can only, exclusively, be achieved through the establishment of this colony of forced-assimilation. The equation of Zionism equals Judaism, no matter the disastrous consequences of which, has raised millions of Jewish people around the world.

And trust, it has not only been by the hands of Jewish Zionism. For Christian Zionism plays a major, glaring role in this indoctrination. With there being more Christian Zionists than there are Jews in the world (with much of the Republican and Democratic parties being Christian Zionists) the ideology of The Rapture, second coming of Jesus, with establishment of Jerusalem as the World’s new Capital following; Jews and Palestinians are just canon-fodder; pawns to summon Jesus. We implore that you do further reading on this matter and it’s instrumental role in Zionist ideology.

And one can only wonder, one can only assume, that has this not since opened an irrefutable Pandora’s Box of a new kind of capitalist nationalism onto the global Jewish community? To appoint a group as above another is a complexity of supremacy that we’ve seen through history. If we look at Imperialist history, we see what ideology has forced its way through epochs to excuse brutal expansionist policy.

What’s worst, and what’s most enraging, is that Shoah has been weaponised not only from the Holocaust industry— the billions made from displaying Jewish generational trauma and the cinematic brutalisation of our people— to ensure the West can constantly remind us that their role in the war was for Jewish liberation, and certainly not due to fearing Nazi imperial domination as a threat to Western imperial interests… but to merit the Israeli States’ “right to self determination” and “self-defence” against inevitable Native Palestinian uprising.

Zionism is a right-wing, ethnonationalist idology that has been used to control and influence Jewish communities for decades, to justify imperialist expansion. It’s an insult, a disgrace, to Jewish history, identity and peoplehood.

Anti-Zionism is the radical rejection and desire to dismantle the very systems that harm not only us, Jews, but our brothers and sisters in this fight against capitalist regime. We seek unity, liberation, equity, justice. We seek love where there has been unprecedented hatred. We seek grace where there has been insolence. Anti-Zionism is integral in the fight for true global liberation.

There is pain upon the Holy Land, Palestine, and we must admit that we can do something about it.

#free palestine #palestine #anti capitalism #anti imperialism #jumblr #judaism #israel #jewish thought #jewish #antizionism #jewish antizionists #antizionists unite #christian hegemony #christian zionism

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Federal Plans to Aid the Jobless,” Kingston Whig-Standard. October 28, 1932. Page 7. ---- Dominion Opens 28 Camps to Level Landing Fields --- (Special to The Whig -Standard) OTTAWA — Relief plans by the federal authorities to meet unemployment thla this coming season now shape up as follows: 

Twenty-six camps along the route of the future Trans-Canada airway are being opened up by the department of national defence for the purpose of clearing and leveling landing fields. 

Temporary camps are being established under the department of the interior in the national parks at which brush clearing and road building will be carried on.

A relief settlement scheme along the lines of "back to the land” — sometimes known as the "600 scheme” — is in effect in eight provinces. Up to October 14, 943 settlers with 2187 dependent had been established on land in the different provinces. 

The placing of men to work on farms, by which the farmer will receive $5 a month from the government and the man receives a similar amount, will be in effect exactly as last year when 9,500 took advantage of the scheme. This year the number is expected to be larger. 

Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have in operation work camps for the single unemployed men, toward the financing of which the federal government pays half. The work to be done is mainly roadwork. 

Some public works are being completed, the cessation of which would have been detrimental. This will give employment to men up to the end of the year though in decreasing numbers. 

For those who do not come within any of the above schemes, the federal government will continue the direct relief contribution of last winter. The organised municipalities are contributing one-third, the province one-third and the federal government one -third. In unorganized districts, province and the federal government share fifty-fifty. 

In the provincial road camps, the men are paid from $5 to $7.50 month and are given their board and housing, with acme provision either by the municipality or other agency in most cases for clothing.

#dominion-provincial relations #unemployment relief #direct relief #relief camps #single unemployed men #department of national defence #road building #unemployment #farming in canada #agricultural workers #canada airways #landing fields #great depression in canada #bennett government #capitalism in crisis #dominion government

[nando161mando]

"Epona Rose is a woman of trans experience who was attacked on the street in Flagstaff by a group of three men while two more men watched. The men were drunk and sexually harassing her in a way that was making her feel unsafe. The harassment escalated to threats of rape, and then to actual physical violence, when they realized she was transgender. Epona defended herself bravely against this attack and did not call the police.

1/4

#JailSupport

(CW eye contact)"

#epona rose #161 #1312 #trans solidarity #transgender #trans #flagstaff #self defense #self defence techniques #self defence moves #self defence classes #self defence training #humanrights #class war #classwar #anti capitalism #antifascist #antifaschistische aktion #anarchofeminism #anarchocommunism #anarchopunk #anarchoqueer #anarcho syndicalism #anarchism #anarchy #anarchist #antiauthoritarian #antinazi #antinationalist #trans queen

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 18 July 1969, Black Panthers held a conference in Oakland alongside the white anti-racist Young Patriots Organisation and Puerto Rican street gang-turned-radical group the Young Lords. The Young Patriots were a group of poor, mostly Appalachian migrants in Chicago. Although they opposed racism, they originally wore Confederate flags, which they believed were a symbol of rebellion. As they worked more with communities of colour, they abandoned the flag as an irredeemable symbol of white supremacy. Leading Panther Fred Hampton played a key role in building links with them and other white working class youth, until he was assassinated by police. In his speech, William "Preacherman" Fesperman of the Young Patriots, argued for armed self-defence against police brutality: "A gun on the side of a pig means two things: it means racism and it means capitalism and the gun on the side of a revolutionary, on the side of the people, means solidarity and socialism." Learn more about the Panthers in these books by former members: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/black-panthers https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=663813302458555&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[transmutationisms]

from a non-academic, i find parts of comphet to be useful (heterosexuality becomes compulsory when you’re raised in a heterosexual society) but the foundations . suck. what do we do with theories like this, that have touched on a truth but also carry a lot of garbage? can we separate the truth from the founder?

i have to be slightly pedantic and say that i don't think rich's essay is an example of this phenomenon. my central issue with her formulation is its bioessentialist assumptions about human sex and therefore also sexuality. if i say "capitalism includes economic mechanisms that enforce heterosexual behaviour and exclude other possibilities", then what i mean by "heterosexual" is plainly not the same as what rich means—and for this reason i would seldom formulate the statement this way, without clarifying that i am talking about the enforcement of heterosexuality as a part of the creation and defence of sex/gender categories themselves. so rich and i do not actually agree on the very fundamental premises of this paper! rich was not the first or only person to point out that economic mechanisms as well as resultant social norms enforce heterosexual pairings; i actually don't even think the essay does a very clear job of interrogating the relationship between labour, economy, and the creation of sex/gender; she means something different and essentialist to what i mean by sex and sexuality; and i think her proposed responses to the phenomenon she identifies as 'compulsory heterosexuality' are uninteresting because they mainly propose psychological answers to a problem arising from conditions of political economy. so, in regards to this specific paper, i am actually totally comfortable just saying that it's not a useful formulation, and i don't feel a need to rescue elements of it.

in general, i do know what you're talking about, and i think there's a false dichotomy here: as though we must either discard an idea entirely if it has elements we dislike, or we accept it on the condition that we can plausibly claim these elements and their author are irrelevant. these are not comprehensive options. instead, i would posit that every theory, hypothesis, or idea is laden with context, including values held and assumptions made by their progenitors. the point is not to find a mythical 'objective' truth unburdened by human bias or mistakes; this is impossible. instead, i think we need to take seriously the elements of an idea that we object to. why are they there? what sorts of assumptions or arguments motivate them, and are those actually separable from whatever we like in the idea? if so, can we be clear about which aspects of the theory are still useful or applicable, and where it is that the objectionable elements arise? and if we can identify these points, then what might we propose instead? this is all much more useful, imo, than either waiting for a perfect morally unimpeachable theory or trying to 'accept' a theory without grappling with its origins (political, social, intellectual).

a recent example that you might find interesting as a kind of case study is j lorand matory's book the fetish revisited, which argues that the 'fetish' concept in freud's and marx's work drew from their respective understandings of afro-atlantic gods. in other words, when marx said capitalists "fetishise" commodities or freud spoke about sexual "fetishism", they were each claiming that viewing an object as agentive, meaning-laden in itself (ie, devoid of the context of human meaning-making as a social and political activity) was comparable to 'primitive' and delusory religious practices.

matory's point here isn't that we should reject marx's entire contribution to political economy because he was racist, nor is it that we can somehow accept parts of what marx said by just excising any racist bits. rather, matory asks us to grapple seriously with the role that marx's anthropologically inflected racism plays in his ideas, and what limitations it imposes on them. why is it that marx could identify the commodity as being discursively abstracted and 'fetishised', but did not apply this understanding to other ideas and objects in a consistent way? and how is his understanding of this process of 'fetishisation' shaped by his beliefs about afro-atlantic peoples, and their 'intelligence' or civilisational achievements in comparison to northwestern europeans'? by this critique matory is able to nuance the fetish concept, and to argue that marx's formulation of it was both reductive and inconsistently applied (analogously to how freud viewed only some sexuality as 'fetishistic'). it is true in some sense that capital and the commodity are reified and abstracted in a manner comparable to the creation of a metaphysical entity, but what we get from matory is both a better, more nuanced understanding of this process of meaning-making (incl. a challenge to the racist idea of afro-atlantic gods as simply a result of inferior intelligence or cultural development), and the critical point that if this is fetishism, then we must understand a lot more human discourse and activity as hinging on fetishisation.

the answer of what we do with the shitty or poorly formulated parts of a theory won't always be the same, obviously; this is a dialogue we probably need to have (and then have again) every time we evaluate an idea or theory. but i hope this gives you some jumping-off points to consider, and an idea of what it might look like to grapple with ideas as things inherently shaped by people—and our biases and assumptions and failings—without assuming that means we can or should just discard them any time those failings show through. the point is not to waste time trying to find something objective, but to understand the subjective in its context and with its strengths and limitations, and then to decide from there what use we can or should make of it.

#marx #adrienne rich

[zvaigzdelasas]

[BBC is UK State Media]

Months in jail alongside ally and kingmaker Ousmane Sonko ended suddenly, with the pair released the week before the presidential election.

Now Mr Clean, as he's nicknamed, must get to work on the sweeping reforms he has promised.[...]

Fighting poverty, injustice and corruption are top of Mr Faye's agenda. While working at the Treasury, he and Mr Sonko created a union taskforce to tackle graft.

Gas, oil, fishing and defence deals must all be negotiated to better serve the Senegalese people, says Mr Faye.

He is ushering in an era of "sovereignty" and "rupture" as opposed to more of the same, he told voters, and that is especially true of ties to France.

Senegal's president-elect says he will drop the much-criticised CFA franc currency, which is pegged to the euro and backed by former colonial power France.

Mr Faye wants to replace it with a new Senegalese, or regional West African, currency[...]

Strengthening judicial independence and creating jobs for Senegal's large young population are also key priorities for Mr Faye[...]

One of Mr Faye's heroes is the late Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop - whose work is seen as a precursor to Afrocentrism. Both are seen as left-wing cheerleaders for pan-Africanism.

As early results came in on Monday showing Mr Faye was set for victory, people in the capital, Dakar, celebrated by honking car horns and singing to loud music.

The reaction from international markets was less jubilant, with Senegal's dollar bonds falling to their lowest level in five months. Reuters news agency reports that investors are concerned Mr Faye's presidency may wind down the country's business-friendly policies.

25 Mar 24