#instead of 'yours' meaning 'i have the right to destroy this and exploit it and throw it away as i please. it's there for me to take from'

[dailyanarchistposts]

Sadness and subjection

No, the masses were not innocent dupes; at a certain point, under a certain set of conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is this perversion of the desire of the masses that needs to be accounted for.

—Deleuze and Guattari[11]

In order to rule, those in positions of power need to constantly crush and subdue the forces of transformation. They do not merely need obedience; they need their subjects to be separated from their own capacities. As Audre Lorde writes, “Every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.”[12] Empire’s hold is increasingly affective: it suffuses our emotions, relationships, and desires, propagating feelings of shame, impotence, fear, and dependence. It makes capitalist relations feel inevitable and (to some) even desirable.

An important insight shared by many radical currents is that these forms of violence and control are ultimately toxic for everyone. For men to “enjoy” the benefits of patriarchal masculinity, their capacities for vulnerability and care must be eviscerated, replaced by a violent and disconnected way of being built upon shame and woundedness. For white people to become white, they have to internalize entitlement and a hostility to difference, hiding from the ways their lives depend on institutionalized violence and exploitation. Settlers must build their lives on a living legacy of genocide, indebted to ongoing extraction and dispossession. Being privileged by Empire means being sheltered from its most extreme forms of violence and degradation, and to be enrolled in a stultifying form of life that recreates this violence. Most of what is called privilege has nothing to do with thriving or joy; this is why privileged white men are some of the most emotionally stunted, closed-off people alive today. None of this is to deny that there are pleasures, wealth, and safety associated with whiteness, heteropatriarchal masculinity, and other forms of privilege. Instead, it is to insist that everyone, potentially, has a stake in undoing privileges—and the ongoing violence required to secure them—as a part of transformative struggle. As Jack Halberstam writes in his introduction to Fred Moten’s The Undercommons,

The mission then for the denizens of the undercommons is to recognize that when you seek to make things better, you are not just doing it for the Other, you must also be doing it for yourself. While men may think they are being “sensitive” by turning to feminism, while white people may think they are being right on by opposing racism, no one will really be able to embrace the mission of tearing “this shit down” until they realize that the structures they oppose are not only bad for some of us, they are bad for all of us. Gender hierarchies are bad for men as well as women and they are really bad for the rest of us. Racial hierarchies are not rational and ordered, they are chaotic and nonsensical and must be opposed by precisely all those who benefit in any way from them. Or, as Moten puts it: “The coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve already recognized that it’s fucked up for us. I don’t need your help. I just need you to recognize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly, you stupid motherfucker, you know?”[13]

Empire is killing all of us, in different ways, and all of us, in different ways, are marked by incredible legacies of movement and revolt. Its forms of control are never total, never guaranteed. The word “sabotage” comes from those who destroyed factory machinery by throwing their wooden shoes (sabots) in the gears of the early European factories. Slaves broke their tools in the field, poisoned their masters, learned to read in secret, and invented subversive forms of song and dance.

Empire reacts to resistance by entrenching and accumulating what Spinoza called sadness: the reduction of our capacity to affect and be affected. We’ve chosen not to use this word very much in this book because we’ve found it can be misleading in many ways, but the concept of sadness is important for Spinoza. In the same way that joy gets conflated with happiness, it’s easy to hear “sad” in terms of its familiar meaning as an emotion, rather than the way Spinoza intended it: as a reduction of capacities. For Spinoza, sadness cannot be avoided or eliminated completely; it is part of life. All things wax, wane, and die eventually, and the process can provoke thought, resistance, and action. Sadness and joy can be intertwined in complex ways. But Empire accumulates and spreads sadness. Drawing on Spinoza, here is how Deleuze put it:

We live in a world which is generally disagreeable, where not only people but the established powers have a stake in transmitting sad affects to us. Sadness, sad affects, are all those which reduce our power to act. The established powers need our sadness to make us slaves. The tyrant, the priest, the captors of souls need to persuade us that life is hard and a burden. The powers that be need to repress us no less than to make us anxious … to administer and organize our intimate little fears.[14]

Empire propagates and transmits sad affects. Sadness sticks to us; we are made to desire its rhythms. Terrible situations are made to feel inevitable. For this reason, we speak of the entrenchment of Spinozan sadness as that which is stultifying, depleting, disempowering, individualizing and isolating. But this entrenchment might not feel agonizing or even unpleasant: it might feel like comfort, boredom, or safety. We have found the notion of “subjection” helpful here, because it goes beyond a top-down notion of power. In an interview, the critical trans scholar and organizer Dean Spade explains why he uses this term instead of the more common activist term “oppression”:

“Subjection” suggests a more complex set of relationships, where we are constituted as subjects by these systems, engage in resistance within these systems, manage and are managed within these systems, and can have moments of seeing and exploiting the cracks and edges of these systems. I chose to introduce this term, despite its unfamiliarity in most activist realms I am part of, because I felt its intervention was a necessary part of my argument about how power works.[15]

Today, especially in the metropolitan centers of so-called “developed” countries, subjects are enmeshed in a dense fabric of control. Some of us are steered into forms of life that are compatible and complicit with ongoing exploitation and violence, while other populations are selected for slow death. New forms of subjection are invented to contain each new rebellion, enrolling subjects to participate in the containment. Prisons and policing come to be felt (especially by white people) as a form of safety and security. Misogyny is eroticized and objectification reaches new heights, taking new forms. Desires for affluence and luxury are entrenched amidst growing inequality. Through cellphones and social media, surveillance and control are increasingly participatory. When they are working, these forms of subjection are felt not as impositions but as desires, like a warm embrace or an insistent tug.

#joy #anarchism #joyful militancy #resistance #community building #practical anarchy #practical anarchism #anarchist society #practical #revolution #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #organization #grassroots #grass roots #anarchists #libraries #leftism #social issues #economy #economics #climate change #climate crisis #climate #ecology #anarchy works #environmentalism

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i want to go ahead and write up A Whole Thing about how ricky's arc ultimately comes down to 'protect what's yours,' in a way that tbh manages to be kind of the opposite of the toxic masculinity that trope tends to embody in western media especially. but also it relies on several other major essays about the themes in this show that i need to write up first to tie them all together with it. ashdjsjdjdh. Help

#SDMItag #ricky owens #i'll probably try writing it up for now and then see which things it does turn out i'll need to establish first #but the tl;dr is that ~protect what's yours like a man~ tropes are all about Defending Your Assets from Outside Forces with Violence(tm) #and ricky's 'protect what's yours' is about love as in loyalty as in setting down your stake Here #committing yourself to the wellbeing of whoever or whatever you've chosen; being a support for them to grow and be safe and be free #'yours' as in your family your community your work your activism the things you've built #instead of 'yours' meaning 'i have the right to destroy this and exploit it and throw it away as i please. it's there for me to take from' #it's 'i have a duty; and that duty is not synonymous with Violence; it can be feeding and healing the people you love' #'it can be putting your foot down and removing someone's access to a person or thing you've chosen when they're exploiting them/it' #'it can be *refusing* to do violence' #it's 'you chose me and you were supposed to love me and instead you treated me like a thing that exists for you to use and ruin' #'well i wasn't. i'm not. and i'm going to be what i needed you to be and you weren't' #'i refuse to hurt what's mine for my own gain because i can and i won't let you do it either' #it fucking kills me and it makes what pericles does to him and forces him to do in retaliation that much more fucking tragic #there's so much dude oh my god #kill me #professor pericles #dyn: when i die i want you to die too #abuse cw

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

How about Vox successfully installs a hidden camera in Charlie and Vaggies room for sexy blackmail. But is pissed all the footage he has is cute fluffy hugs and kiss. Nothing explicit at all.

i think if the V's tried this... they would regret it SO fast and probably be scarred for life in the process XD

Vox: "The lack of risk research in this new venture of ours... astounding."

Valentino: "Aw kitty, what better way to keep track of Lucifer's bimbo daughter Charles than by keeping a little camera tucked away in her bedroom?"

Vox: "Pointed at her bed? ONLY her bed?"

Velvette: "Imagine the BLACKMAIL. Hashtag cancel little miss Morningstar!"

Valentino: "Her and her spicy lady are soooooo pruuuudish and so WHOLESOME about that shit stain hotel of theirs- just think of what they'd do not to be the new stars of hell's porn scene?"

Vox: "I'm thinking, if they DON'T mind, their ratings will skyrocket."

Valentino: "....ah."

Velvette: "Oh come on flat screener, there's no way they'd ever be ok with-"

Vox: "And if they DO mind, Lucifer will take us all off the air so fast the cameras will still be rolling while our own heads start to."

Velvette: "FUCK."

Vox: "Am I the only one here actually forecasting audience reactions??"

Velvette: "I HATE BORN LUCKY GIRLS AND THEIR TOP DOG DEMON DADS!"

Valentino: "We can at least heckle their boring sex life privately, yeah?"

Vox: "If they even HAVE one."

Velvette: "Heads up. They're getting into bed now."

Valentino: “Oooooh and they’ve brought equipment~!”

The V’s: “………………”

Valentino: "..... is that. Paperwork?"

Velvette: "Oh hell no."

Vox: "Birds of a feather. If Alastor can be so chummy with them, then-"

Valentino: "They're doing- they’re- fucking doing PAPERWORK in bed!? Together!?? INSTEAD of each other? That’s IT?????"

Velvette: "This is sick. I'm gonna be sick."

Valentino: "AND THEY'RE ENJOYING IT???"

Velvette: "Hhrrrk-"

Vox: "Cut the feed. Destroy the camera. I can feel the static of their domestic fuzzy feel-good lives overtaking my entire network, program by program, station by station." (clutches tv head) "This would be less unsettling if they were a pair of MUPPETS... Fuck this." (deletes camera)

-five minutes later-

Charlie: “You know what Vaggie?”

Vaggie: “What, sweetie?”

Charlie: "I love how much easier doing the hotel budget is when we have each other to cross check it! Frees up a lot more time!"

Vaggie: "Me too babe. Though I kinda still think I love you more."

Charlie: (smiles softly) "Yeah..?"

Vaggie: (leans in) "...yeah."

Charlie: (grins) "Wanna fuck nasty about it?"

Vaggie: (grins back) "I’ll get the toybox."

-meanwhile-

Valentino: “WAIT! ….I feel a disturbance in the fuck! As if two people are having really kinky gay sex right now, and I’m missing out on exploiting it!”

Velvette: (still nauseous) “I’ll exploit my fist to your face if you don’t shut up.”

Vox: “Velvette.”

Velvette: “Oh you know don’t mean it, darling~ Much.”

Vox: “Fair enough.”

Velvette: “Paperwork, blegh. They were using, actual PHYSICAL bits of paper… I’m gonna have fucking nightmares.”

Valentino: “This IS my nightmare!”

Vox: “Welcome to hell, Val.”

#hazbin hotel #chaggie #vox hazbin hotel #velvette hazbin hotel #valentino hazbin hotel #suggestive #incorrect quotes #tbh i think Keekee would find and eat the camera mere seconds after it got turned on #or niffty discovers it while pest controlling and #just #Stares into it #for Hours #it creeps the fuck out of valentino when he goes back through the recoding #he's jumpy for WEEKS afterwards XD

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

hi there! love your work! i recently had a prof say that all zoos (USA) are bad (so we shouldn't support them) and sanctuaries are better because using animals for entertainment is morally wrong, most zoo profits dont go to conservation, and conservation efforts are bandaid solutions to capitalism destroying animal habitats, so the real solution is to return the land to indigenous stewards to manage/rewild. i didn't disagree with the last bit, but the argument as a whole felt a little off to me for a reason i couldnt put my finger on. am i off base here? just feeling really unsure about the whole thing.

You're not wrong! There's a mix of reality and personal opinions in those statements, and it's definitely something worth critically examining. A quick fact-check of what they said for you:

All US zoos are bad

There's a massive range of quality of zoological facilities within the US (and around the world). Some are stellar and some are not, and it's really just not accurate to lump them all under the same umbrella for almost any purpose. Unless, of course, your issue isn't with animal welfare, and it's philosophical, which is what it sound like in #2...

2. Using animals for entertainment is morally wrong.

This is one of my favorite things to talk about w/r/t how we exhibit animals. Entertainment has become equated with exploitation and implicit low welfare in the last couple decades, and so you get a lot of people saying using animals for entertainment is wrong. But those same folk will say that they enjoy seeing animals in other contexts, and they think that's okay. Where's the line between enjoying something and being entertained by it? What makes something one and not the other? Also, we know that people learn better from from situations which are enjoyable/entertaining - even just a fun teacher who jokes around vs a dry lecture - so how can that only be a problem when it's used to make viewing animals more impactful? I wrote a whole piece on this a while back (linked here) if you want to dig into this more. Some zoos (and accrediting groups) are shying away from "entertainment" type branding - shows are demos now, for instance - and others are leaning into "edutainment" that's done with good welfare and communicates actual education messaging. In short, this is a personal philosophical belief, and you're right to question if you agree. (Even if you decide you do think that too! It's always good to question why someone is arguing what they believe about animal use, and how they came to believe it).

3. Sanctuaries are better than zoos.

There's two reasons I think he's misinformed here. First, almost all exotic animal sanctuaries in the US are licensed exhibitors - just like zoos! I only know of a couple that don't exhibit to the public at all. It's an important part of their revenue stream, because gate take helps support paying for animal care. Also anything you see from a sanctuary on Youtube, Facebook, or TikTok? Also exhibition! They just message about it differently, and often have a different ethos about how they exhibit (e.g. tours to reduce stress instead of letting people wander, doing conservation or rescue messaging instead of just display). Second... look, most people assume that the word "sanctuary" means a facility is intrinsically more ethical than a zoo, and therefore they must be a good place. In reality, many sanctuaries get much less public and regulatory scrutiny (at the state level) than most zoos. There are good sanctuaries out there, but there are also sanctuaries where stuff goes on that would absolutely be unacceptable at zoos, and it slides because of the assumption that sanctuaries are inherently more moral and ethical and care for their animals better.

4. Most zoo profits don't go to conservation

This is correct! Direct conservation funding is often a small part of the money a zoo makes. However, that's because money goes to things like facility maintenance, new construction, paying salaries, etc. If zoos put all the money they made back into conservation programs, practically, they wouldn't have the funding to continue to operate. The question that I'd suggest asking instead is "where are they putting money into conservation" and "are they doing conservation work or just throwing money at something to display the logo of the program." Also, it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of what zoos do to support conservation isn't necessarily financial. Many facilities contribute "in-kind", by doing things like sending staff to assist with programs or teach specific skills, or by donating things like vehicles and equipment. Research zoos do also seriously contributes to in-situ programs, and breeding programs for re-introduction like the scimitar-horned oryx and the black-footed ferret are also conservation. Could many of the big urban facilities with huge budgets do more? Yes. But looking just at dollars spent on conservation programs is disingenuous and inaccurate.

5. Conservation efforts are band-aid solutions to capitalism destroying habitats / Returning the land to indigenous peoples to manage/rewild is the real solution to conservation issues

This is a little outside my scope so I'm going to only address the part that I know. First off, like, there's no One True Answer to conservation issues. That's reductionist and inaccurate. Conservation really is a human issue, though, and it often has to involve solving human problems that lead to negative results for animals. There's definitely an issue with what some people call "parachute conservation" where Westerners swoop in and try to tell people living in range countries how to best manage their animals and natural resources without recognizing their perspectives, needs, or what drives their behavior towards those animals. That's not just a zoo issue - that's an issue with a ton of traditional Western conservation work. And there is progress towards fixing it! In the zoo world, I've been very impressed with the work out of The Living Desert, where their conservation people spend a lot of time overseas teaching people in range countries to evaluate and improve their own conservation programs, so they can assess efficacy and also have data to apply for grants, etc. They provide support when asked, rather than trying to tell people who live with these animals regularly what to do. One of my favorite programs that TLD collaborates with (they don't try to run it!) is a group called the Black Mambas that reduces poaching by supporting entire communities to reduce the desperation for food/income, educating kids about animals, and running all-female patrols staffed by community members.

Overall, it sounds like your professor's view of zoos is really informed by their personal moral perspective, and possibly reinforced by a lot of the misinformation / misleading messaging that exists about the industry and about conservation work. They do have some specifics right, but not necessarily the context to inform why things are like that. It was a good catch to question the mix of information and approach it critically.

#zoo industry #zoo information #philosophy around zoos and what they do #conservation #zoo questions

[sukimas]

The primary difference between gods and youkai in Touhou is of course that gods inspire awe rather than disgust. I've discussed this before.

Now, the differences between yuurei and youkai might be a little more difficult to pick up on, especially when a lot of them are spawned from similar circumstances (rejection, betrayal, othering.) Yuurei of course die from those circumstances while youkai don't really. But much more importantly, in terms of Touhou, yuurei were hurt, and remain hurt. Their existences are quintessentially defined by their suffering and regret; vengeful spirits are defined by unending anger, funayuurei by their own drowning, common yuurei are simply humans who weren't buried properly and thus cannot pass on. They both suffer and cause suffering.

Youkai, meanwhile, are beings that were initially defined by rejection. This may have caused them to hate and resent humanity at first, but they're not supposed to do that (see Eiki's lecture to Medicine); a youkai cannot survive off of that sort of notion. Youkai are nigh-universally (barring some very unwell- and I do mean physically unwell here- exceptions) happy with their current situations. They exist to cause others to feel fear, rather than feeling it themselves. They do not attack humans because of a desire for vengeance. They attack humans because they enjoy it; because they are defined as beings by enjoying the exercise of their own power, because they pass their curses onto others instead of being cursed themselves.

I think that this a key insight to understanding a fairly large number of youkai. In particular, some of the underground ones; Parsee enjoys being able to inflict jealousy even though she's often jealous herself, and Satori loves the ability to read minds even though she's hated for it. The reason that Koishi closed off her heart was because of rejection from other youkai, not from humans!

It's also key, though, to understanding the youkai that interface with the outside world. Mamizou has every right to look at humans with hatred and allow her life to be defined by it; they destroyed her home while she was there, they terrorized her into Gensoukyou. And yet she loves hanging around with them in Gensoukyou, even though she secretly dreams about how the humans of the outside world scare her. She loves exercising her superiority over them, too: "Ho ho ho!" and all that.

Yukari is similar; though she has plenty of reason to despise humanity, she... doesn't.

She resents their abandonment of things they don't need, certainly, and plots to take it all back. But she doesn't hate them. They're her funny, dear, pathetic creatures.

As with Mamizou, her relationship to humans is simply one of predation and exploitation. A youkai who misses the noise of the city. A youkai who adores violence, even when she has nothing to prove; there's little reason to talk how much she loves the scent of death in front of Okina (who can always tell if she's lying) and Sumireko (who would surely just think it was cool, rather than fearing her like she'd want) if she intends to play a role.

If anything, she hides that violent side around humans she needs to trust her. Compare her initial conversation with Reimu to those she has with Marisa and Sakuya; only when talking to the shrine maiden, who she needs to not see her as a threat, does she not bring up murder.

...Of course, I'm getting away from myself a bit. But Yukari ultimately sees humans as lesser than she is. They are not something to "take revenge on", because there's no reason to take revenge on something that gave you the greatest gift of your existence. (Other youkai we get the internality of seem to see them similarly) They are something to take advantage of to make her own life better. If it happens in a way that's ironic considering what happened to her, well, all the better; but that isn't what defines her. What defines all youkai is that they hunt humans. Nothing more, and nothing less. Without that, they would not be youkai.

Contrast Mima; though she's less developed than our dear current vengeful spirit, her raison d'etre is "to take revenge on the entire human race". Until she has accomplished that, she cannot rest; this is quite literally preventing her from dying, and once she achieves it, she will be at peace. She needs to do this; it is the very purpose for which she was reborn. What defines vengeful spirits is their desire for revenge. Nothing more, and nothing less. Without that, they would not be vengeful spirits.

So.

Youkai are differentiated from vengeful spirits in that they exist to prey on humans, rather than to take revenge on humans. They do this because they pass on curses to others rather than be cursed themselves. The method of choice for youkai barring those with more spiritual requirements for sustenance is to kill and eat humans; those with more spiritual requirements still often kill humans (and do eat some part of the human; whether it be magical power, fear, or jealousy.) They are defined by consumption and exploitation; they have become the powerful, rather than the powerless, and enjoy this ability to exploit. Youkai who do not enjoy this kill themselves.

Yukari is a youkai; one whose interface with the world is quite physical. Just look at her. She is made of eyes and hands. Therefore, the method she utilizes for exploitation and consumption must thematically be quite physical as well. She happily sees herself as a youkai of this nature, too.

For all of the above reasons, it's completely thematically incoherent for Yukari Yakumo to not kill and eat humans with enthusiasm.

#gensoukyou meta #long post #i am not adding a readmore. you will look at this. #怪 #touhou

[read-marx-and-lenin]

What do you think of the term "personal property" as distinct from "private property?" I'm not sure how I feel about it because on one hand the people pushing for it often seem to be petty-burgeois opportunists who insist on the continuation of homeowning and such during socialism, but on the other hand some of the people opposing it seem to have read what Marx said about how all property borders will disappear on higher-stage communism and interpreted it as "REAL communists want to confiscate your toothbrush, which is why the USSR wasn't REAL communism."

I mean, if you want to read Marx, the Communist Manifesto is right there.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence. Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily. Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property? But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism. To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

What does it mean to own a home? Capitalism conflates home ownership with land ownership and with private ownership of the means of production. To the capitalists and their apologists, there is no difference between any of these, all of these should be commodified and treated the same under the law.

Is living in a home and being secure in your right to live in a home enough to own it? The capitalist would say no. Common law traditionally assigns three fundamental rights necessary for private ownership, referred to in the Latin as usus, fructus, and abusus. That is, the right to use it, the right to profit from it, and the right to abuse it.

To the capitalist, if you cannot rent your house out for profit, you do not own it. To the capitalist, if you cannot dismantle the house and sell it for scrap, you do not own it. If these so-called fundamental rights are abridged, then suddenly homeownership becomes impossible in the mind of a capitalist.

When it comes to land or homes, communism does not grant individuals the rights of fructus or abusus. Communism recognizes that these things have an existence beyond the individual, that though an individual may use them for a period, eventually they will be used by someone else. To continue the privatization of homes or land would be to stifle collectivization and maintain a sense of bourgeois individualism that communism should instead seek to eliminate.

To nationalise the land, in order to let it out in small plots to individuals or working men's societies, would, under a middle-class government, only engender a reckless competition among themselves and thus result in a progressive increase of "Rent" which, in its turn, would afford new facilities to the appropriators of feeding upon the producers. [...] I say on the contrary; the social movement will lead to this decision that the land can but be owned by the nation itself. To give up the soil to the hands of associated rural labourers, would be to surrender society to one exclusive class of producers. The nationalisation of land will work a complete change in the relations between labour and capital, and finally, do away with the capitalist form of production, whether industrial or rural. Then class distinctions and privileges will disappear together with the economical basis upon which they rest. To live on other people's labour will become a thing of the past. There will be no longer any government or state power, distinct from society itself! Agriculture, mining, manufacture, in one word, all branches of production, will gradually be organised in the most adequate manner. National centralisation of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers, carrying on the social business on a common and rational plan.

(Marx, The Nationalization of the Land, 1872)

The distortion of communistic abolition of property into such a complete dissolution of any and all forms of ownership no matter how personal has been around since Marx's own time. As he remarked in The German Ideology, when faced with Stirner's egoistic criticisms of communism:

When the narrow-minded bourgeois says to the communists: by abolishing property, i.e., my existence as a capitalist, as a landed proprietor, as a factory-owner, and your existence as workers, you abolish my individuality and your own; by making it impossible for me to exploit you, the workers, to rake in my profit, interest or rent, you make it impossible for me to exist as an individual. — When, therefore, the bourgeois tells the communists: by abolishing my existence as a bourgeois, you abolish my existence as an individual; when thus he identifies himself as a bourgeois with himself as an individual, one must, at least, recognise his frankness and shamelessness. For the bourgeois it is actually the case, he believes himself to be an individual only insofar as he is a bourgeois. But when the theoreticians of the bourgeoisie come forward and give a general expression to this assertion, when they equate the bourgeois’s property with individuality in theory as well and want to give a logical justification for this equation, then this nonsense begins to become solemn and holy. Above “Stirner” refuted the communist abolition of private property by first transforming private property into “having” and then declaring the verb “to have” an indispensable word, an eternal truth, because even in communist society it could happen that Stirner will “have” a stomach-ache. In exactly the same way here his arguments regarding the impossibility of abolishing private property depend on his transforming private property into the concept of property, on exploiting the etymological connection between the words Eigentum and eigen and declaring the word eigen an eternal truth, because even under the communist system it could happen that a stomach-ache will be eigen to him. All this theoretical nonsense, which seeks refuge in etymology, would be impossible if the actual private property that the communists want to abolish had not been transformed into the abstract notion of “property”. This transformation, on the one hand, saves one the trouble of having to say anything, or even merely to know anything, about actual private property and, on the other hand, makes it easy to discover a contradiction in communism, since after the abolition of (actual) property it is, of course, easy to discover all sorts of things in communism which can be included in the concept “property”. In reality, of course, the situation is just the reverse. In reality I possess private property only insofar as I have something vendible, whereas what is peculiar to me [meine Eigenheit] may not be vendible at all. My frock-coat is private property for me only so long as I can barter, pawn or sell it, so long [as it] is [marketable]. If it loses that feature, if it becomes tattered, it can still have a number of features which make it valuable for me, it may even become a feature of me and turn me into a tatterdemalion. But no economist would think of classing it as my private property, since it does not enable me to command any, even the smallest, amount of other people’s labour. A lawyer, an ideologist of private property, could perhaps still indulge in such twaddle.

And to head off any notion that Marx had suddenly changed his mind at some point later in life, that the events of Paris or some other event might have convinced him that personal property should be abolished at "higher-stage" communism, here is Engels in Anti-Duhring explaining clearly what Marx's thoughts were on the subject:

Marx says: “It is the negation of negation. This re-establishes individual property, but on the basis of the acquisitions of the capitalist era, i.e., on co-operation of free workers and their possession in common of the land and of the means of production produced by labour. The transformation of scattered private property, arising from individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process, incomparably more protracted, arduous, and difficult, than the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialised production, into socialised property.” [K. Marx, Das Kapital, p. 793.] That is all. The state of things brought about by the expropriation of the expropriators is therefore characterised as the re-establishment of individual property, but on the basis of the social ownership of the land and of the means of production produced by labour itself. To anyone who understands plain talk this means that social ownership extends to the land and the other means of production, and individual ownership to the products, that is, the articles of consumption. And in order to make the matter comprehensible even to children of six, Marx assumes on page 56 “a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour-power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour-power of the community”, that is, a society organised on a socialist basis; and he continues: “The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary.” And surely that is clear enough even for Herr Dühring, in spite of his having Hegel on his brain. The property which is at once both individual and social, this confusing hybrid, this nonsense which necessarily springs from Hegelian dialectics, this nebulous world, this profound dialectical enigma, which Marx leaves his adepts to solve for themselves — is yet another free creation and imagination on the part of Herr Dühring.

There is no such "disappearance of property borders" in Marx's communism. At no stage of communism does Marx ever prescribe anything of the sort.

Private property, the social property that capitalism has already socialized by requiring the collective labor of the working class in order to maintain and make productive, will be expropriated from the capitalists and nationalized by the proletarian state to become the collective property of the working class.

Personal property, that portion of the produce of society that can be used only by individuals and that has no reason at all to be shared, will remain personal. You will not have to pass your plate around so that everyone can take a bite out of your food. You will not have to wear hand-me-down clothing. And you will not have to share your toothbrush.

#anon ask #communism #socialism #marxism #anti capitalism #leftism

[autumnmobile12]

All right, this scene is a contentious one to say the least.

I want to look at the elements that make up this part, starting from the very beginning.

After waking up in Gresit, Alucard had one goal:  Kill Dracula.  Throughout Season 2, he’s determined, he has points of dry, sarcastic humor, but as a whole, his personality is pretty grim.  He is absolutely unwavering in his determination.

Once Dracula was dead, though, he now has to live with the guilt of not only killing the father who loved and raised him but also the guilt over being unable to save his mother when she needed him.  When Lisa was taken, Alucard was traveling, and though he never explicitly says this, I would bet anything that ever since that night he has asked himself, “Why wasn’t I there?  What could I have done differently?  If I had done _______, she would be here right now and none of this would have ever happened.”  Alucard is a rational character.  He understands that what happened to Lisa was a cruel accident of fate.  She was accused of witchcraft, and he and his father were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They couldn’t have predicted her death, they couldn’t have changed it.

But this is how the Bargaining Stage of Grief plays out.  This is what sets him apart from Trevor and Sypha by the end of Season 2.  Between the three of them, Sypha still has her family waiting for her.  She still has her people and the optimism to still see the brighter future.  (Which is a trait she never fully loses.)  As for Trevor, he had already lost everyone he’d ever loved, and so he definitely already went through all the messy stages of grief to the point of sad acceptance that his family is dead and now he has to live with that.

Alucard can’t identify with that kind of acceptance yet, for either of his parents. The grief is too raw, and so I believe his decision to remain behind while his companions left without him was a form of self-punishment.  In spite of the understanding it wasn’t his fault, he doesn’t believe he deserves to be happy after everything that happened.  Sure, he says he needs to protect the accumulation of his father’s knowledge, and while that might have been true, I feel like he had other options.  The show demonstrates that magic is capable of the impossible, so I feel like there should have been some kind of spell that could be engineered to keep his father’s/the Hold’s collection from being destroyed or looted.  If he asked Sypha and Trevor to stay and help him, I think they would have.  Instead, he watches them leave without asking them to visit or even expecting to see them ever again.  And we leave him finally breaking down over his losses.

All this to say he was not in a good headspace when Sumi and Taka showed up, which they picked up on and exploited to their advantage.  (The guy was talking to dolls he’d made to resemble his friends, and he was mimicking their voices in pseudo-conversation.  Funny conversations, yes, but damn, that coping mechanism…)

The first thing Alucard tells them is he ‘will not be hunted,’ but there is a disturbing irony here.

Attacking them indicates that his guard was up and he was ready to end lives if he had to.  Self-preservation is on point.  It’s Sumi and Taka who de-escalate the situation.  “We mean you no harm.  We came to ask you for help.”  They’re smiling and laughing by the end of this initial encounter.  They tell him their story.  “We’re these poor, innocent waifs from a distant land searching for a way to save our people.  Pity us.”  They present themselves as non-threatening, wide-eyed victims who only need help, which is a ruse he unfortunately falls for.

“It’s time for your reward.”

It makes my skin crawl how despicable that one line of manipulation is.  This is the chink in Alucard’s armor:  the idea of guilt that persists after the mother he couldn’t save and the father he killed, especially the latter.  Understandably, although Alucard recognizes what he did was necessary, the fact he’s committed patricide is weighing on him.  There was Sypha’s words of comfort at the end of Season 2 that was it was ‘okay to love the man,’ but neither she or Trevor are around.  This leaves the opening for the toxic, false comfort of Sumi and Taka’s manipulation.  Here they are introducing the conflicting idea that what he did is worthy of praise.

Couple that with the factor that at this point, he’s only known them for a few days at most.  Obviously, that’s nowhere near long enough to establish an emotional connection that’s strong enough to say,  “Yes, I want to be with this person.”  But his silence is not consent; in fact, I see this as fear that if he does not go through with this like they want, it will make them leave him like Sypha and Trevor did.  Again, they are playing on that fatal loneliness.  Coercion.

Soft words, soft voices, and that is he what he needed to hear.

And Sumi and Taka knew exactly what to say.

Back in their flashback about Cho, Sumi and Taka talk how they ‘studied’ her, studied the way she fought, and learned about her weaknesses for years.  This is the subtlest bit of foreshadowing I’ve found so far in the series.  It shows that Sumi and Taka don’t hunt vampires the way Trevor does.  They’re formidable fighters, yes, but they were not born and raised to hunt like the Belmonts were.  They don’t have that specific training or discipline, so they make up for it with deceit.  They ingratiate themselves with their prey, observing them and looking for the weak point.

Alucard said he would not be hunted.

But he was.

The entire time they were there, Sumi and Taka were studying him the way they studied Cho.  They saw Alucard’s loneliness and they took full advantage of the trust he gave them.  He invited them into his home, fed, and looked after them, he saw himself as their friend while the whole time they were looking for a way to kill him.  They were continuously asking about weapons, magic, off-limits rooms in the Castle, when the Castle could be fixed, etc.  They were trying to zero in on the ‘kill room’ where he would be at his most vulnerable.

It’s hard to say how much of Sumi and Taka’s story was true given the outcome, but I’m inclined to believe it was but with one caveat.  I don’t think they helped their fellow prisoners escape.  I think they were the only survivors.  There’s no evidence of this other than the fact I think it’s suspicious that they left their friends behind to seek help.  Okay…Japan is a long way from Wallachia.  They couldn’t find anyone closer?  They didn’t try to smuggle more people away?  They don’t even mention their people in their angry ranting before they try to kill Alucard.

There’s also the brief line where they say they were given to Cho’s court as children.  It’s not clear whether or not their parents were forced to give them up as tribute to Cho, but that’s irrelevant if they themselves felt betrayed and abandoned by the people who should have loved and protected them.  There is the later line where they say everyone lies to them.  With that, I think they were so far in the fog of grief and anger that in their minds, they were unable to recognize Alucard could have been a genuine ally to them, and they only saw him as just another vampire who was evil and needed to be killed.

The beauty and the tragedy of both Alucard and Lisa’s characters is that they are both so incredibly kind and selfless, and they want to believe in people.  Even when the Bishop’s henchmen came to her home, Lisa didn’t immediately jump to the conclusion of witchcraft and fear.  She asked if the Archbishop was ill and if they needed her help.  When they started tearing apart her home, she told them whatever they wanted she would give it to them.  She didn’t try to run.  She tried to explain calmly about her medical practice and that what she did helped people.  Her undoing was a man who meant her harm.

Lisa’s arrest is mirrored in the moments before Alucard kills Sumi and Taka.  Even though he realizes what’s happened and the situation he’s in, realizing they aren’t with him out of love and this was all a manipulation, a trap, and even rape——even though he realized all that, he still wanted to help them.

Right before they die, he is begging them to listen, that is their friend, and he can help them. The world is not against them.  These aren’t the words of a man trying to save himself.  He is living admirably up to the virtues he learned from his mother.  He waited until the last possible moment before choosing to save his own life over theirs. And his last line to them is, “I never lied to you.”

There’s no condoning what Sumi and Taka did to Alucard, that is an undeniably fucked up thing to do to a person and the plot accounted for it by killing off their characters.  However, I do feel these two are a testament to how anger and hatred will destroy a person and are a kind of foil to characters like Isaac. Isaac was horribly abused in his past and he had every reason to resent humanity, and yet by the end of his arc, he was beginning to let go of his anger and start a new life where he could be happy.  This is the lesson Isaac learns by the end of Season 3 whereas we leave Alucard again weeping alone with the memory of people he couldn’t save:  his mother and father and the two people he thought were his friends.  Again, he is grieving.  “I was a good friend to them, wasn’t I?  I helped them, didn’t I?  What did I do wrong?’

The answers are yes, yes, and no, he did nothing wrong.  Grieving is coming to terms with that.

And finally, we have the gruesome way in which he ‘displays’ their bodies outside the Castle as a means to warn off other travelers or intruders.  Impalement was a very degrading means of execution.  It was excruciatingly slow, extremely painful, and those who faced this sentence would suffer for hours if not days in public.  You see the rage and humiliation he feels, and so by impaling the corpses, he in turn inflicted that humiliation on Sumi and Taka.  It’s probably as close to the ‘eye for an eye’ mentality as he gets.

A recurring theme throughout the series is innocence against the brutality of a cruel world.  Characters like Sypha, Alucard, and Lisa can give all the kindness they have to offer, but they can’t change the fact that people like the Judge and Bishop exist.  Characters like Trevor and Isaac lost their faith in humanity and found it again with the help of people like Sypha and the Ship Captain.  And characters like Dracula, Carmilla, and even Sumi and Taka, lost their way entirely and were swallowed up by their rage and pain.

#castlevania #alucard tepes #sumi and taka #lisa tepes #cho #castlevania netflix #character analysis #character development #alucard and lisa #isaac #castlevania dracula #character comparison #trevor belmont #sypha belnades #grieving characters #grief #this one was hard to write

[marvelstars]

Tolkien LOTR vs George Lucas STAR WARS

Disclaimer: talking with mutuals about Tolkien and Lucas this came up and wanted to share.

I believe both Tolkien and Lucas were anti imperialism(represented by the ring/empire respectively) and anti war but their takes is completely different because they lived different times.

Tolkien story of the lost kings who died for nothing seeking power represents pretty well the story of the first World War in which the imperial powers of Europe became excited over their new hability to put ot test weapons and made a local conflict into an all out war between countries exploiting the nationalism of the people to push them towards war, the tirednes and dissapointment over fighting a war for men who only wanted power is excelently interpreted in the Lord of the Rings in which the only solution is to destroy the ring and try to live peacefully with each other and support honest work and protect lives the best way you can, with wise kings and wise elves who care about people and it´s well being. That´s what I see Tolkien going for, he also tackles the idea that no matter how noble or peaceful like Fredo or Bilbo we could be, power still can corrupts us if we expend enough time around it. Power can corrupt everybody and the best we can do is try to not make it the most important thing in our lifes like Aragorn did when he became King.

Lucas wasn´t a soldier like Tolkien so he is much more idealist than him, he grew up and became excited over the protests for the war of Vietnam in the US and the consequences of WWII with the creation of the atomic bomb. So Star Wars battle in the OT isn´t just about greedy people trying to get power by any mean neccesary, the first trilogy is about a fair war fought agaisnt the imperial power who offered peace in exchange of freedom, which is another face imperialism can take and the death star(atomic bomb) is the one weapon they believe can “end all resistance” "end all wars" but they are wrong because just like in a New Hope, the Death Star only makes other people more nervous about it´s use and most will seek how to oppose it with similar means or with different kinds of resistence.

Star Wars presents the problematic dilema of war not being good on itself but becoming neccesary when your opponent will not engage in dialogue by any other means, so just like in LOTR the kingdoms have to join to form a military, the rebel alliance is there to fight the Empire.

The Jedi Order in the OT represents the old order, estatus quo that the Empire defeated to put their own Order, they are not evil by any means but by presenting a “ends justifices the means” philosophy by lying to Luke and forgetting about Anakin´s humanity and existence in exchange of dehumanizing him and seeing him only as a machine like Obi-Wan did, this doesn´t bring them the victory, mostly their plan gets revealed and rejected by Luke, the main hero of the OT, the fandom may have a very different take on the Jedi but Lucas definitely didn´t write the Jedi as flawless beings but as a tragic order that after the zenit of their power fell along with Anakin, literally and espiritually too. Otherwise Lucas would not talk about Anakin being a victim of the system who lost his mind trying to do the right thing, he wasn´t just part of the Republic but also part of the Jedi Order.

Luke, while dealing with his own feelings of anger, need for revenge for his murdered family and wish for freedom along with his friends, also learns humility by losing his first fight with Vader but also empathy, he has feel the darkness inside himself, he was told his father wasn´t always like that and he has felt Vader´s twisted love for him so he humanizes his enemy instead of dehumanizing him and seeks to save him from the darkside, because this has become the only way to defeat Vader and the Emperor while they are together and also because Luke wants Vader to be his father just as much as Vader wants Luke to be his Son.

So in the end family is the thing that saves the universe in Star Wars just like friendship, care, empathy and appreciation of the simple and beautiful things saved the people of LOTR. The Jedi imo in the PT and OT were not evil, they had their own wisdom and brought good things to the story like honor and duty but they were wrong to try to force Luke agaisn´t his father, they were wrong for keeping Anakin away from his family and they were wrong to forget love in exchange of duty.

This is also why I believe Luke doesn´t just brings back Anakin from the darkside, he did the same with the Jedi Order, he became the kind of Jedi Anakin always dreamed to be, with enough freedom to act with kindness, love and caring as well as honor and duty, a more balanced Jedi Order.

So it´s a complete shame disney missed the memo and makes more merchandise of the Jedi because they are more marketable forgetting the deep message of the story. Luke in the Mandalorian and ST isn´t ROTJ Luke, but a badly done PT Jedi style of Luke and that´s a complete tragedy imo because it misses the main message of the story, that you don´t have to reject love and family to support ideals and do your duty. They make you whole not less the person you are.

#star wars #LOTR #Tolkien #George Lucas #Luke skywalker #Anakin skywalker #frodo baggins #Jedi order critical #Obi-Wan critical #darth vader

[yumenotambourin]

Can you tell me more about your Elfilis pleaaseeee

AAA TYSM FOR ASKING!!!s

Okay so I’m not really good with open questions, but I’ll just dump whatever comes to my mind, if you want to know something specific feel free to ask!! I’ve been rotating them in my mind nonstop for two years I’d never be able to write everything.

First of all, my Lizzie is the Ultimate Lifeform. What does that mean, you may ask? Well, to put it simply, they are meant to* be the pinnacle of evolution, a being capable of anything, a being that cannot be outmatched.

*I say they are meant to because they are not a product of evolution. They are an angel birthed by Void’s feeling of being alive(???).

So, Elfilis is the perfect being. And knowing this has made them grow arrogant and self absorbed, although not exactly with malice. They are aware that they are genetically superior to any other being in the universe, and they treat others (who they call “inferior beings”) with I don’t really know how to explain this but with less disdain and more condescension. They essentially treat everyone around them like a little child might treat bugs: as tiny, insignificant things who can be fun to watch but even more to squash.

That’s kinda why they destroy planets, too. They just think it’s fun, and they genuinely don’t see anything wrong within it because they see themselves as above “pointless inferior concepts” such as morality. They also never really had a home, instead they travel from planet to planet, only briefly stopping to rest before blowing them up with no remorse, so they have little to no concept of consequences or society, and they dismiss these things as being below them. Also, they don’t destroy these planets due to ill feelings, in fact they love visiting different ones, but they simply don’t see the point in letting the planets continue existing after they’ve seen them (sorry if I’m not explaining well I’m just a bit tired)

Btw going on a little tangent here but today I was translating old Japanese mouce posts and one of them said “I find their arrogance inspiring” 😭 emoji)I mean I get what they’re saying, and honestly same but not worded it like that 😭 but maybe I have to look better what each word means.

Throughout their unmeasurably long existence, Elfilis never even thought of the possibility of being defeated. They are a smart mous, but they are also painfully overconfident and reckless to a fault. Which is, for example, why they let themself be run over, or get captured in the first place.

Lizzie was captured with guns. They might have healing abilities, but when the thing that hurts you stays inside of their body it actually made it worse. So they were shot until they passed out from the pain.

While in captivity, Elfilis spent the vast majority in their dream world, using it to explore the outside through the visitors’ memories and trying their best to pretend like everything is alright, waking only to see Neichel.

Btw, they’re very torn on their feelings towards Neichel, because on one hand she kept them company and stood by their side the entire time and they grew attached to her, while on the other hand she stole their song and exploited them like the rest, plus the sole fact that she is a human.

Also the New Worlders' feelings about Elfilis were mixed between fear, wonder and tenderness(like 🥺), no matter how much hatred one could hold for a being who attempted to destroy their planet, for nearly everyone it vanished the moment they saw how beautiful and miserable this creature was.

But Lab Discovera was sooo close to develop technology beyond anything humanity could've ever imagined, and if they frred the mous they'd have all the more reason to turn this planet to dust. So its better to keep them caged, right...?

Anyways, their decision to split was a stupid impulsive choice they made in the heat of the moment during a failed attempt at escape. They figured that by ejecting all their feelings would’ve allowed them to reason better, and the half of themself outside could help the half of them inside escape. They certainly didn’t expect to spawn two babies and condemn them to suffer for millennia.

In the present, Elfilis greatly loves their little ones, and takes on the role of the cool older sibling for them. They want the Gemini to be as happy as possible to make up for all the suffering they’ve put them through. Btw, they don’t want the babies to necessarily follow their footsteps, but they want them to at least be aware that they, too, are perfect like their sibling.

Btw they despise Kirby for being a “bad influence” on Elfilin and for trying to prevent them from existing just cause he made a little friend and for running them over, but they tolerate him because he undoubtedly makes their babies happy.

They also often pick on Meta Knight, mainly to tease Elfilin cause he admires him, but also cause they see that he’s trying to make himself look cooler by acting the way Galacta is (falsely) portrayed in the present and they think its funny.

Btw the were also a Gucci Gangster, specifically the healer of the team. Due to void shenanigans they can’t remember much of their other two friends, but meeting Kirby and Meta Knight unlocked their memories of Galacta. They miss him very much but they’re somehow sure they’d be able to bring him back one way or another.

Okay so its 2 am so that’s all for today, I repeat I’m not too good with open questions so if you want to know more please feel free to ask!!!

#gatorade #ask #elfilis #fecto elfilis #headcanons

[juni-ravenhall]

the "but almost all games nowadays are exploiting children (and all ages) players?" type comments about the sso thing are just haunting me. the "but thats weird, why this?" reaction, instead of "hell yeah! we need to destroy exploitative manipulative advertising and companies that do this to people!"

ppl are so used to being bombarded with exploitative advertising and dishonest marketing and being manipulated and brainwashed and exposed to schemes to try to get you to waste money on useless gambling and subpar quality products. and ppl are so used to *children* being bombarded with that. that it feels okay to them. that it feels like "well, thats just how things are".

and i keep thinking about how extremely insane it is to me that ppl will be actively mad about fandom shit but NOT ACTIVELY MAD about advertising and exploitative tactics.

like. if you are mad about ppl saying "i hate this game", or by people drawing fanart you dont like, or whatever, if that somehow affects you personally emotionally (it really doesnt have to you know - its not a good place to be in) but youre. not everyday being personally emotionally affected by the fact that capitalists do this shit to everyone and to children who cant even fucking tell that theyre being advertised to. the children dont fucking understand that the companies are preying on them. they cant recognise advertising for what it is. they dont know quality standards. they dont understand what gambling is or why its bad. they dont know how to tell when companies are lying. they dont know how bad plastic is. they dont know how much all of this explotative capitalist shit can hurt them and everyone else and our planet.

it just drives me crazy. that ppl can be so upset about random things individuals online are doing who are not capitalist and not abusers and not exploiting children or vulnerable people, but youre not actively fucking screaming against capitalism, against how people are being killed in the name of Owning More and Making Money (the wars killing people are about money and resources and land!!! capitalism!!!), about the planet being destroyed, about human rights being violated, all these things, are less important to you (you dont get that upset about it everyday, you dont scream about it everyday) than some fucking random harmless people saying your favourite game or movie sucks, bc now thats a real issue, or someone writing a fanfic you think sucks, bc now thats a real issue, or someone telling you to stop being mean to harmless people is sooo awful what a crime cant believe your human right to free speech is being suppressed like that, while people are fucking dying to make your sweatshop fashion and your slavery chocolate.

boohoo i have real issues too, yeah heres the thing, im sure you do have a few real issues. like being ND is a real issue, or being queer, or being oppressed for how you were born, or how you look, all of those things are real issues. but if you get mad about fucking dumb ass fandom things like ppl criticising a game or disagreeing with you about a fandom topic (not a human rights one) or god forbid people telling you to be kinder and more respectful to others. if those are things you get mad at. and you go "huh but exploitative advertising and monetising towards kids is normal?" or "but theyre a company they have to do pay staff?" i just want to fucking scream

#im going insane about how nobody has a fucking sense of priorities i dont know how to fucking cope interacting with people #who are this fucking logically lost. im getting so tired of it. its exhausting. i feel sad for everyone who is brainwashed but #i also feel just exhausted. take accountability and responsibility and learn to prioritise and understand scope and scale #and stop fucking being mad at oppressed people doing random ultimately harmless shit when you cant even speak up against capitalism- #- against the entire fucking planet and humanity and animals being destroyed. i cant deal with you

[old-school-butch]

Why did Hamas take hostages and start a war?

I'm tempted to use the fable of the scorpion and the frog here, because what is Hamas without war? It was always going to be war, their entire existence is dedicated to overthrowing Israel and taking it for themselves. They went through a bit of rebranding in 2017 when they created a new charter that said they accepted the 1967 borders of Israel as the basis for a 10 - 100 year ceasefire (not a peace treaty though - that means recognizing the existence of Israel and of course, and never giving up claims to the 'right of return' of Palestinians into Israel, which would give Palestinians majority control over country), and they realized it was more acceptable to say they were anti-Zionist instead of anti-Jew.

But I'd argue they've never been too interested in the leadership of Gaza for the sake of the Palestinian people. They don't govern Gaza really, UNWRA manages most of the foreign aid that sustains schools and hospitals. Little interest is shown in building infrastructure. Hamas' main achievement in holding power was to establish a security force to consolidate it's own power, but at least reduced the anarchy, gang violence and competing terror cells that were running rampant. Gaza has received billions in foreign aid over the last 2 decades, it should look like a seaside paradise by now. I've noticed this with the Taliban too and even the Muslim Brotherhood during it's time in power in Egypt - ideologues and revolutionaries aren't really in it for the bureaucracy and daily work of governing a state. They want to be either unimaginably wealthy or powerful, they dream of running a global caliphate, and destroying Israel is just step 1 in creating the Arab superstate, destroying Western corruption, consolidating power and expanding from there. Hamas is a short form of its official name - Islamic Resistance Movement, and it is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamist organizing to create the new caliphate goes back to the 20s but it was overshadowed by a more secular pan-Arab movement until the six day war with Israel dealt the Arab league a resounding defeat. Islamism has been the new, organizing principle to rally around to consolidate regional, and ideally, global power. I'm finding wikipedia a surprisingly unbiased source if you want a quick overview, although you have to read a few different entries to get the full picture.

Israel has made so many attempts at appeasement and containment, which are ironically now dragged out as if the Israeli government was somehow complicit in creating Hamas because they allowed Qatari money to enter Gaza to be paid to Hamas political leaders (now spun as 'Israel brought briefcases full of cash to Hamas') or that they supported Hamas to undermine the PA (Hamas was elected and fought a war with PA to control Gaza so I'm not sure how Israel could have ignored them. I really can't imagine juggling the PA, PLO and Hamas, and every time you make peace with one the others splinter off and reject your agreements). Hamas, in turn, has spent the last 2 years preparing this attack, while also convincing Israel it was moving away from seeking conflict.

Anyway, you were asking about this war in particular, and not the first and second intifada, their war with Fatah, or the wars against Israel in 2008-2009 or 2014. I'm not privy to what intelligence Hamas possessed that now would be a good time to start another war, but I can make a few guesses:

Opportunity: They learned of security holes in Israel that they could successfully exploit to make a devastating attack.

Method: They had friends willing to supply weapons, training and intelligence. Most significantly, Iran and Hezbollah, but they also met with Russia, they sent a delegation to the Saudis in April and to Syria in June to try to smoothe over those relationships.

Motive: They felt that supply of support might fade in the future, and thus the time to strike was now. The U.S. has been simultaneously getting Arab countries to recognize Israel and normalize relationships with Israel. The Palestinian 'cause' couldn't exist without external support. There's not enough people and, let's be honest, no real history to support a sustained nationalist campaign. The Levant was a sparsely-populated, dirt poor backwater where remnant populations of invading Arab caliphates were overtaken by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. Without external support, anyone who didn't want to be in or near Israel would have left and been absorbed by any number of the 22 Arab Muslim states in the region. Its claim to fame is that it's the site of religious significance to multiple religions and thus, its has symbolic significance.

But Hamas was formed as proxy fighters in a proxy war, and the U.S. efforts were moving toward peace at an alarming rate by sidestepping direct intervention (as they had with Camp David negotiations in the past). Instead, they took their message to the regional powers who, over the years, have now all had their own run-ins with iterations of this movement and now see it as a threat to their own rule. Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain have all recognized Israel. The Saudis were in the process of joining them, which threatened to tip the balance of power in the area.

The goals of this war were to make Israel respond so they could be freshly blamed for regional problems, make Hamas and Palestine relevant again to global interest and as a regional force and remind everyone that making peace isn't possible as long as radical groups remain a force that can undermine that process.

[sunnomnoms]

Can i request up for a Miles Edgeworth and Franziska Von Karma with a younger sibling!reader who's also clever as them however reader doesn't use their 100% braincells most of the time unless it's necessary?

If that's a bit difficult to write for, it's alright! You can do just a Younger Sibling!Reader general headcanons if you like

Oooooo I love writing silly little guys don’t you even worry. I may have self projected a tad bit on the reader because <3 me too <3 also I hope I interpreted this right? sorry if not! I focused a lot on how this affects sorta your relationship with them, so sorry if it’s short </3

Warning: slight angst, mentions of family tension, etc etc.

-

Considering you aren’t always on your A-game, people like to chat about and talk about you due to your well renowned family- and they don’t always say the nicest of things, unfortunately.

Miles, at all points in time, looks to defend you against peoples (very incorrect) idea that you got the short end of the stick when it comes to cleverness. In his own words, “You aren’t stupid, you’re just too intelligent to waste intellectual energy on any and all meaningless meandering.” It’s his nice way of referring to you as low-energy.

Franziska is a special sort. She will always look to challenge you and your deductions on any sort of case, looking to exploit your low energy to prove a point. While she doesn’t do it out of true malice, it can sometimes feel kinda bad too. Franziska considers herself cut from a very different cloth- she herself is unable to pick her battles, and instead feels she must pick them all. It doesn’t always work out for her in the long run.

That being said, it must be noted that Franziska doesn’t dislike you in any sort of way- quite the opposite. She has a bit of tunnel vision on how people should be in a court of law, and she worries others will exploit your low energy like she does in your meaningless little squabbling back at forth. In a way, it’s her way of challenging you to try and teach you. Unlike Miles, I don’t she quite understands that you’re picking your battles on purpose to conserve energy. She’s being supportive in the way she knows how, but it doesn’t always land. It can just feel like a mean big sister taking jabs at you sometimes, and it doesn’t even always help “improve” your critical thinking or anything- sometimes it just wounds your ego.

Miles, while worrying for you, always has faith in your ability. during the trials you were his aid in court, he willingly swats away the defenses attempts at dissecting your every word to catch you in an inconsistency so that you can focus and get to the major point. Miles always has faith due to what he calls your “gotcha” moment- the final and usually fatal blow you make to a defense’s argument that is iron clad. Miles revels in the discomfort of the defense and the court as they are completely unable to argue against your final claims, as he feels it must be something that heals your spirit after what the ignorant public say about you. He’s fine with taking the risk of you leading yourself to your main point- he’s taken much worse risks than letting you build your case as you speak. He even finds it a little fun- it’s suspenseful watching you go from the seemingly ditzy court aid to a big dog in the ring as the trial goes on.

Franziska on the other hand doesn’t quite like to risk it. She’s a very “I don’t need help, I never need help” type, so she doesn’t usually have an aid in court anyway. But in the rare cases that she takes your help, she still expects to do most of the “heavy lifting” per se. It isn’t that she doesn’t trust you, it’s that she absolutely does not trust the defense to not exploit you into accidentally destroying the case you and her spent so long working on. Franziska doesn’t like to take risks, it stresses her out. she worries about you possibly never reaching a final major conclusion in court and accidentally making a fool of yourself.

While Miles heavily believes in your ability and treats you as an equal to him, You’re still the baby sibling in Franziska‘a heart- and her need to be overprotective of you never quite faded away. It causes family tension, most certainly, but things are always tense around here it feels like…

At the end of the day, Miles is a more understanding figure, as he has a bit of a need for understand things from the inside out before making his mind about them emotionally. Despite his cold nature, Miles understands your low energy and even has a limit of his own when it comes to energy towards certain scenarios. He understands you aren’t a candle that can be lit at both ends without major consequences, and he doesn’t see the issue with that. Despite it all, he’s aware you know what’s best for yourself- and knows that you wouldn’t allow yourself or anyone to be caught up in a situation that can be easily dismantled so long as you put your energy towards it. He will always be in your corner, and will always be ready to scold the cruel press for their awful interpretation of you.

Franziska is a more complicated sort, with a need for guaranteed consistency and absolutely no room for doubt. Franziska worries more than she’ll ever let in, she’s nearly riddled with anxiety if things aren’t in their perfect place- which is why she finds your demeanor so stress-inducing as she worries she can never properly count on it catching you or her if either of you tumble in court. It isn’t healthy, and she absolutely should believe in you more, but the anxiety eats her up inside. Even when she needs you most and you’re able to keep her case grounded in court when she can’t, the crippling anxiety she feels causes her to unfortunately be dismissive of it- which is absolutely painful. She doesn’t give your grand showings of your intellect the credit they deserve when she absolutely should, still too worried about the mistakes you may make rather than the victories. She couldn’t handle the possibility of you getting hurt to a point you give up your aspirations within the court of law due to a simple mistake in your judgement. so she looks to shield you at any point in time- despite it ultimately causing a rift and a feeling that she thinks you’re unable to handle yourself.

Ultimately speaking, Franziska needs therapy- and needs to take a page out of your book. She has this idea she needs to create and be perfection, but it isn’t humanly possible, and shouldn’t be expected of her or you. She’s due for some development, and due to give you an apology for how she’s treated you due to her own anxiety. She’s been burning the candle at both ends herself, always putting 110% she didn’t have into all she does. Franziska loves you, but her skewed view on how things should be are what cause her hurtful behaviors towards you. she doesn’t want to hurt you, she aches at the idea- she just is hard on you as others were on her because she doesn’t want you hurting like she did growing up. Be patient, she’ll soon come to realize you don’t need to be “fixed” and that you’re doing what’s best for you. expect a lot of tears when she does.

Miles isn’t perfect either by any means, but in terms of conserving energy he can relate to your antics. He’s always been the lower energy type, mainly because he doesn’t like to overexert himself (it’s a fate worse than death in his opinion, he HATES being unable to compete a task due to lack of energy). Chances are you likely inherited it from him unknowingly, simply following the mannerisms of your big brother. Miles often tells you to not fret on Franziska’s criticism on you, as it’s criticism she’s given him too. He’s always looking to be a supportive figure for you, as he shares that same need to protect you like Franziska- especially after all that he’s lost. He’s not looking to lose you either.

#miles edgeworth #franziska von karma #reader insert #miles edgeworth x reader #franziska von karma x reader #request #ace attorney request #ace attorney x reader #ace attorney x you #requests open #aa #ryu aa tag

[collapsedsquid]

Is this “Fascism?“

The far right populist movements increasing in power across the “west“ can be difficult to describe, inchoate, self-contradictory.  So was classical fascism.  Thus endless arguments can be had on whether these are fascist, generally focused on questions like “How serious a threat is this?“ or “Is some sort of ‘popular front’ warranted and to what degree?“  I want to take a different tack on this.  I should say that this is US-focused but I think those ideas have penetrated parallel, France or German far-right movements don’t look too different.

Fascism was borne out of global industrialized total war.  No we live in global post-industrial cold war.   The ‘socialism“ in “national socialism” can be a misleading word but it does speak to the desire to mass mobilization, not just to win national power but then against the world.  Now we live in a world of mass de-mobilization, no national pride is worth paying a cent more for gasoline.  While classical fascism was the misbegotten stepchild of 19th century nationalism, the current far-right is the misbegotten step-child of 20th century libertarianism. Perhaps it is a betrayal of that spirit in the same way that classical fascism was a betrayal of 1848, but I argue that it still remains and is important. 

So no mass mobilization, rooted in libertarianism, what does this mean? Classical fascist movements can be thought of as a desire to manage exploitation, people need to be organized, into the factory, into the army base, and eventually yes into the work/death camp.”  In a world of global industrial total war this mobilization was believed necessary by those elites who held power, even if they do not wish war others might against them.  And this mobilization was contested by the labor movement, both in the form of brief insurrections but also the day-to-day labor activism that the movements did that were seen to hamper this.

Now though, moving people into factories is no longer a concern of the elite, instead the opposite is causing issues. The labor movement is no longer seen to pose a threat to either the political order or narrow profit. Instead the current issues of the elite are those of exclusion, not exploitation. Non-citizens excluded from the nation, homeless excluded from nice neighborhoods, those that are thought obnoxious excluded from “society”.

“The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited all.”  It can really fucking suck to be unemployed.  The menace of underemployment can strike as well, I posit that for many different measures of “exploitation,“ the most exploited are not the worst off in society.  Working in a car factory is less miserable, and more productive, and more highly compensated than working as a migrant farm laborer.  Don’t really need that many car-makers though.  We got people queuing up to both work in car factories and get permission to cross the border to do farm-work though.

So now it’s all about exclusion, all sorts of people need to be kept in their place, prevented from interfering with Good Society.  Here is where the libertarianism comes in. Libertarianism has managed to appeal to a great many people who wish to escape different types of “interference.“  Some wish to escape the drug war.  Some are ticked off about the IRS.  For some, environmental regulation is something to be destroyed, for some who long for a world of caveat emptor it’s consumer protections against scams.  And for many, the interference they wished to escape was the imposition of desegregation.

Some within that movement had their own broad vision of the future of liberty though, rather than the million niggling offenses.  The masses, who demand regulation, labor codes, welfare states, these masses are aggressors, intruder on your private property just like an intruder sneaking into your house, who can and should be met with lethal force.  What happens to those who depend on the welfare states?  Perhaps with this withering away they will find it in themselves to become productive members of society.  Or maybe they will not, perhaps they are merely unworthy parasites deserving only to be purged.

There is a book from a libertarian position written in the 90s that posits this, “The Sovereign Individual,“ still beloved of some libertarians.  It describes this process of state breakdown as the inevitable result of the post-industrial information economy.  The world of nation-states will break apart and people will live in wealthy private enclosed communities.  Or, at least, the survivors will, those that aren’t viewed as productive, perhaps because of their culture or ethnicity may not make it.  This is turned into a eschatological prophecy for some, the market’s punishment and redemption for turning away from the gold standard.  In the 90s, this felt like something that would take care of itself.  The regulatory and welfare state and then maybe the nation-state itself would wither away, forced to by the pressure of markets. After the great financial crisis and years of QE failing to cause hyperinflation, this process no longer looks as inevitable.  Perhaps it must be forced.

Classical fascism was about mass discipline, this was thought necessary to preserve private property and national dignity, to protect them against the world. The miserable no longer need to be forced into the factory, but kept out from the community.  “State power“ needed to be seized, now state power is a bit more ambiguous, perhaps state power can be dispensed with, replaced with private communities, warlords, sheriffs to keep out the undesirables. If you can’t seize legitimate power with a coup, maybe you just destroy legitimacy itself.  Instead of mass national expansion, you merely secure key resources and execute potential threats.  The death camp can be inverted, instead you have fortress for the elect and a free-fire zone outside.

Post-foucaltian weirdos could see the imposition of mask and vaccine mandates as fascism, these are measures of exploitation, not exclusion, there is no desire to keep the body of the nation healthy, this is not nationalist but post-nationalist. The nation need not be preserved, only deviants kept out.

So what should we expect?  Not sure really. I think the main upshot here is a better view of what power is attempting to be seized here. 

#still thinking this through but I'll publish it anyways #might revise it #there are a million tangents I could go on

[arceespinkgun]

You reblogged a post saying Earthspark has addressed things effectively, so what's your stance regarding the recent discussions about its anti-immigration message?/genq

I'm not sure how I feel about being asked to give an opinion on things people haven't said to me. If somebody sent me an ask being like, "I think Earthspark is anti-immigration, here's why, what do you think?" then I'd have no problem with responding and giving an opinion! But this is like, tagging me into a discussion that I don't really feel like I was involved in/should butt into? On the other hand, you're asking for my opinion directly, and I have seen people publicly saying they think it's anti-immigration in the show's tag, so I guess maybe it's okay if it's like, a public discussion. Plus, I'm a non-binary, disabled, mixed-race person, meaning the show addresses people who share experiences like mine, and one of my parents is an immigrant...

I wouldn't have reblogged any posts saying Earthspark's handled issues of marginalization successfully if I didn't agree! I think believing that the show is anti-immigration is like… a bizarre reading because it ignores an incredible amount of context and blatant messaging to the audience. The sense I got from when I saw people saying this in the tag is that the reasoning is something like: "It's unintentionally anti-immigration because the transformers brought their war to Earth, resulting in human death, and at least some of the Decepticons intended to colonize the planet. So when the show suggests it's wrong to discriminate against transformers, it falls flat because the immigrants WERE dangerous colonizers all along."

But that's not true. First of all, while yes, the Cybertronians are technically immigrants, when most people talk about immigrants they mean people who intentionally wanted to be in another place, you know? Not people who were stranded. And let's think about why they were stranded. The Autobots destroyed the Space Bridge to sever the link between the two worlds as a last-ditch attempt to prevent further destruction to the Earth and its people. They did this because they KNOW it was a terrible thing to have brought the war to Earth—the Autobots, as far as we know, always knew it was their duty to protect humanity and the planet. They stranded themselves on Earth and potentially destroyed their homeworld for the sake of the Earth. So while of course people might be right to fear Decepticons specifically, transformers in general DON'T deserve to be hated. To hate all transformers is to hate someone for their species, isn't it? Plus, the Autobots since the 80s have been refugees of a war, which they are in this series, too… you know, like many immigrants are in real-life? It's also important to see that Autobots doing morally dubious things in Earthspark—like working with GHOST—have been doing it because they're so desperate to protect humans and have their trust that they have become self-destructive.

I've also seen people complaining about how people find the Decepticons very sympathetic. But… how is that the show's fault? The show extends sympathy to the Decepticons 1) who have chosen to become better people, or 2) are being tortured by GHOST/other humans. Okay? I see no problem with this? Dot drove her car into Swindle's face, everybody. It's not saying self-defense or suspicion is always bad, just exploitation/abuse of POWs. Why are we not celebrating finally having a TF show that is extremely anti-military? The show has blatantly said over and over that it is people's actions that should be judged. The actions of people like Mandroid are not reasonable... it is impossible to justify in any way things like his hatred of the Terrans (who were born on Earth and have never hurt anyone, by the way).

I also want to say that it would be one thing if the show never explored ACTUAL real-world racism or if (shudder) we had some white family as the main characters instead. But this isn't the case. The show has successfully and clearly explored actual, non-fantasy racism multiple times. We saw the microaggressions against Mo and Robby from their teacher at school. We saw Agent Schloder making Alex be his driver and do errands for him. We saw Dot and Alex, fearful at the racetrack, as they're first held in suspicion by the military, then later have to pretend to be grateful. Also, I get the sense that people who think the show is anti-immigration think the show villainizes humans, but like. Half the main heroes of this show are human. Kids watching have great role models in the Maltos... judge people for their actions, not their identity. People deserve a second chance, but might not take it. Advocate for yourself, and when something feels wrong, speak up. I see nothing wrong with the philosophies of the human Maltos, and the experiences of mixed-race human characters are centered and explored excellently? The show presents a range of humans, some heroic and some villainous.

Finally, I think the most important thing I can say here is that when you want to examine the media you consume with a critical eye, that is good. But a critical eye doesn't mean "only focusing on bad things," and it DEFINITELY doesn't mean, "only focusing on tearing down representation of marginalized people as worked on by other marginalized people." What I mean is this: maybe you disagree with me and think Earthspark is bad representation. I don't get how, but you're entitled to your opinion and to share it. But I would implore you and everyone to also consider how much better it is than everything that has come before. I know it's the show that just came out, but if you're going to be this critical of it, remember how much worse everything else is, too: Carbomya in G1. Everything about Cab in Masterforce (extra relevant here since he's from a fictional place in the Philippines)! The really uncomfortable portrayal of (sigh) Una and Chak in BW. Everything involving the Sumdacs in TFA. TFP's main Black character being tortured and the aftereffects being portrayed as a funny joke in the premiere. The Combaticons working for a fictional son of Kim Jong-il in IDW. I could go on and on. I don't mean to say that we should settle for lackluster representation (though I see no issues with Earthspark's representation), but just that, well... it's weird to focus so heavily on the least problematic of all representation in the franchise IMO. And I think that to publicly argue that you are on the side of the people writing things like, "Transformers go home" may not ultimately be serving your communities.

#I think this is part of a trend of marginalized people being overly critical of the work of other marginalized people #while letting works that don't try/are FAR more deserving of criticism off easy. I get why this happens and it's sad every time #I could say a lot more. Point to many more details that show why I don't agree #like reminding people that the show went out of its way to mention that Optimus Prime made Megatron take an Earth vehicle mode #or talk about how the Terrans' mixed ancestry relates to their siblings' mixed-race experience #transformers earthspark #earthspark spoilers #long post #my analysis #...Also... we haven't even seen one full season of this show yet!!! lol

[magnoliamyrrh]

i think my problem with dune and the “cultural appropriation” was that the man didn’t even get inspiration from certain languages and cultures and religions, he really just copied and pasted without changing much, if anything. isn’t one of the books literally titled ‘jihad’? and i get it’s supposed to be a good commentary on anti-imperialism and the time in which it was written, but it always trips me up to see straight up arabic and certain aspects of islam unchanged and prominent in the books without having been altered to fit a more sci-fi narrative.

i can totally get that, because yes, its not just influence, its v heavily based. dune tho is an interesting case in this bc isnt just a,, wholly parallel and different world to ours as in many stories whose using real life infleunce; it takes place in our universe, but thousands of years in the future. humanity invented AI and high technology which got out of hand, and a huge revolt and war happened. at the end of this war, all computers and "thinking ai" were destroyed and there was imposed a ban on their creation. thus, in dune religion, ritual, and culture are very important and hold a lot of weight and infleunce, and everything mostly runs on this, and human "supernatural" abilities - even when they use ships and such, they are controlled by humans which have trained and ingested high amounts of spice (basically space lsd, and the thing that the planet arrakis is being imperialized and exploited for) which has mutated them, and which control the ships w mind powers, and use their minds to bend time and space for travel. instead of computers to hold databases, trained people hold on to memories and history. this is why dune too is not a "classical scifi" and it is somewhere... in between almost like a.. medieval setting, but in space? bc technology in the classical sense no longer exists, and unlike in the vast majority of scifi, religion, tradition, belief in god, abilities like mind reading etc etc is very important

so, in dune islamic words and concepts are used not just as infleunce or inspiration, but bc thats what islam has become thousands upon thousands of years in the future - and i think particularly shia islam. it has over all this time changed and also been blended with other religions; islam is not the only one around which exists in our world (and theres some new ones too). for example there is catholicism, and catholicism has been adopted into the "orange catholic bible" which is one of the most important religious texts in dune - this religious text isnt just catholic, but rather it is a blend of many if not most earth human religions which existed, and which became widely known after the war faught against AI. so, bc of that, several concepts and words are used straight from many of the religions that currently exist, even tho theyve changed in this future - new-islam is a promiment infleunce in particular however across the universe. idk theres many examples but another too of another nonislamic infleunce would be the bene gessarit religious sect which is shady af and very powerful, based on jesuits and catholic nuns, and which use the term "reverend mother" as is used now. other words such as "massiah" are used too, and pauls relationship w his mother is paralleled to an extend to jesus and the virgin mary

and on the use of arabic; it has itself survived in dune, not just certain words. not another invented sci-fi language like it in infleunce, but the arabic we have which has changed over thousands of years (i think from what i remember its actually an arabic-farsi combo). the ppl on arrakis, not in the movie but in the books, speak a local and unique form of future-arabic, in which words such as jihad, sunna, etc etc still exist with semi-similar meanings

but also. yea youre right, and i can understand how thatd be jarring. bc no (aside from argument on the use of word jihad and broader islam to send a anti-colonial message), its not just loose influence or inspiration, its actual forms of islam and real world religions re-imagined in a thousands of years in the future scenario; and while in some regards all these religions have not only blended together but changed, as has new-space-islam itself, space-islam (sounds silly lol) is the most prominent one in the book, and it has held on to a lot of the actual essence of (from what i know particularly shia) islam. and i can see how that could be something which comes w certain issues or is uncomfortable or weird

#im sorry i hope i didnt just mansplain dune idk how much u know abt the whole thing

[dipperdesperado]

philanthropy sucks

Imagine you're a bright-eyed kid, looking to make some extra money over the summer. Not many companies are hiring, but your next-door neighbor is willing to pay you to clear out and restore some of their land so that they can start growing a garden. They'll pay you 50 bucks/day, and even let you take off whatever days you want. That sounds like a pretty good deal, right? Especially if you're a kid who doesn't have to support their fam, you'd be balling on a gig like this. Okay, so after a summer of hard work, (104 days if Phineas and Ferb is anything to believe), and assuming you took 20 days off (you gotta have some fun, right, you are $4.2k heavier. Nice! You could probably buy anything you could imagine. Even if you needed to support your family with expenses, you might be able to with money like this. But, there's a question that this arrangement asks: What does the neighbor get? Obviously, they trade your labor for a wage. But what does it mean to give your labor away? That tends to be contextual. In this case, you are using your productivity to multiply the productivity of your neighbor's space. Now, they can grow things on their land, and produce as much wealth as they would like. As long as they don't destroy their land (or even if they do), they have a chance to make back what they gave you and much more. Well, what's wrong with this, and how does it relate to philanthropy? Don't worry, I'm getting there. All of the facets of this relationship are dictated by the neighbor. You could "opt-out" if you wanted to find a better deal elsewhere, but they could've just hired your friend. It'd just be shifting the burden of exploitation. While they gave you a good working rate, that was something they decided to do, which also goes against the ways that they're incentivized by the arrangement. It's nice when folks with capital act against their class interests, but that can't be guaranteed. The issue here is systemic. Certain elements of the system, that this relationship is built around, lead to the kind of arrangement where spending a summer working instead of enjoying life would be enticing in the first place. Imagine if they decided to pay you much less. Or imagine if you had to take care of your family, or if a family member was sick. In all of those contexts, whatever they decide to give you is what you'll get. Even though they wouldn't even be able to make continual money from their garden unless you prepared the land. Now, they could pay you well, and they could support some nonprofit that is trying to address the issues that cause your predicament. Maybe this could be seen as good, or the right thing. I'm not one to tell people that they shouldn't accept whatever kind of support they can get to survive. I just pose a single question. Why do they get to control what happens with the value that you generate?