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smalltall · 4 years

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firelxdykatara replied to your post

Imagine if the people on this site spent like half...

ao3 has never been untruthful, you just don’t like that people know where their money is going and are giving to ao3 anyway because they like, understand how stocks and investments work and you don’t lmfao. and i don’t see you bitching about people still buying $60 games instead of donating to people’s cashapps like, grow up, ppl need entertainment and sometimes want to donate so that everyone else can continue to enjoy that entertainment for free

ok @firelxdykatara, you want my attention, you got my attention. Everyone else avert your eyes, this is the last post I’ll make about the cursed acronym.

The difference between buying a $60 dollar game and donating to ao3′s fund is that you have to buy the game to play it. Meanwhile you would be able to read ao3′s entire website, for free, and do so for the next ten years even if no one ever made a donation again, because ao3 has accrued over $2 million in extra donations in the last decade. Extra. That means aside from their stated expenses and aside from their savings. They do not need more money. They haven’t needed more money for a very long time. And they certainly don’t need to keep the fundraiser up til it reaches 4 times what they requested.

They themselves say they only need 130k each time! That’s all the official budget requires! Yet twice a year they make double, triple, quadruple that amount and where does it all go? Their legal department hasn’t spent a penny on fandom-related litigation since 2016. They haven’t lifted the site out of beta.They don’t account for the couple hundred thousand that vanishes from every annual expense report.They haven’t gone into any sort of detail about what type of server exactly they use, or how many, or the nature of their upkeep--it begins and ends with “x amount goes to server maintenance!” And you can rah-rah-yas-queen their new stock portfolio all you want, doesn’t change the fact that they filled it with your money which you thought was going to site upkeep. You have to invest a pretty big chunk of change to create a portfolio--this means they’ve saved enough money that they feel free to dip into it whenever they want to embark on uncertain business ventures.

Yet still, the fundraiser stays up. When people are sick, broke and dying. That’s the fucking issue.

No one on your side has denied any of this. Sure I’ve gotten the usual bullshit--”look at the expense report you illiterate fuckhead” “shut up” “you want to kill fandom” “it’s my money bitch I can do what I want” etc. But no one can muster a scrap of evidence proving me wrong. Like you, they settle for the “So What” comeback. “So what if ao3 isn’t 100% transparent like they claim to be, like we’ve screamed they are for years. Donating makes me happy because it pisses off The Antis.”

Will you be different? Will you provide a document, an audio clip, a screenshot--anything that could conceivably be called a counter-argument? C’mon you can do it, I believe in you. Get your cowardly ass out of the replies and use your brain.

#ao3.

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satireknight · 7 years

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TMNT S02E03 - It Came From Beneath The Sewers

Which is not technically true, since what we see comes from the sewers, and not really any lower down. But “beneath” sounds so much more sinister, doesn’t it?

So the Turtles are back to searching for the next part of the Eye of Sarnath, and presumably hoping that this one doesn’t have horrifying near-fatal effects on them.

What kind of front seat holds five people?!

Donatello’s tracker makes R2-D2 noises at him, which apparently means something. They head off to a relatively deserted area... which has a carnival in it. I guess it had to fall somewhere, so why not a carnival?

April is horrified that they plan to just stroll in, reminding them that they’re turtles and thus likely to attract attention. But they seem pretty relaxed about the idea, pointing out that they can just claim to be part of the sideshow or something like that.

“Is there a carnival dress code?” Well, not being practically nude is probably expected.

I have to wonder, whose idea were the monogrammed belts? Did Splinter have trouble telling them apart, or is it just the easiest way to keep their stuff from getting mixed up?

Meanwhile, Krang has finally gotten sick of his answering machine being filled up with whiny demands, and agrees to help Shredder find the next fragment of the crystal. Also, Baxter threw the first one away, somehow. I’d suggest he did it passive-aggressively, but someone who addresses Shredder as “master” all the time probably doesn’t have enough spine.

And despite never having seen the crystalline tracker or the Eye of Sarnath, Krang is able to zero in on the energy... in the Caribbean.

“I’ve located it, in an area outside the city!” Outside “the city.” Gotta love that even the alien brain-creature has that New Yorker state of mind, where there’s just New York and then the Mad Max wasteland outside it. Apparently Shredder already knows that that’s where a carnival is located, which raises the question of whether he had been there before.

So the Turtles and April sort of wander around, with Michelangelo winning prizes and Donatello getting fleas. But the crystal is found first by two small boys who hope they can trade it for more ride tickets. The Turtles are a bit offput by the idea of mugging small children, but they’re dragged off by the carnival boss who mistakes them for clowns. No, I’m not sure why.

April tries to bribe the kids, but they won’t pony up for only three bucks and/or a credit card. Does she think they have a card reader?

If you need proof that Shredder’s really come down in the world, the mighty and deadly ninja is about to mug two small children.

So after the Turtles are railroaded into doing a clown act (yes, really),

April milks Michelangelo of all the cash he has apparently been keeping in his invisible pockets. But she’s too late, because Shredder has managed to grab the crystal, get kicked in the shin by one of the kids, and sent the thing flying only for it to be grabbed by Baxter.

“You must admit, I do have soft hands.” Did anyone dispute that?

But things get icky when they head back to their hideout to analyze the crystal, and it bumps into Shredder’s foot, which has some kind of slime on it. The slime is apparently some kind of Dimension X plant matter that Shredder stepped in when.... he was inside the Technodrome. And he decides that a giant plant will obviously be a great way to kill the Turtles, because... uh... Little Shop of Horrors.

The Turtles are kind of upset that they bumbled the whole getting-fragments thing twice in a row, especially since the batteries are running out in the crystal tracking device.

If you need proof Donatello’s a nerd, look how deliriously happy he is at the sight of alien batteries.

Just then giant green vine-tentacles come breaking through the wall, and immediately grabs Michelangelo, who seems to be the natural target for tentacles in this series.

As if it weren’t weird enough, the plant says “ow” when cut, before grabbing April and Raphael, and finally withdrawing after too many nasty jabs. Donatello figures out that it’s not from this planet... which is a bit of a Captain Obvious, since last time I checked killer vine-tentacle plants don’t exist here.

Also, where did Splinter go?

April, having nearly been dragged off by a killer plant, whines because they’re leaving her behind. Maybe they want to keep their rescuing to a minimum? So she ends up in her apartment with her friend Irma, who is thinking of (what else?) men. Wait, apartment? She must have gotten another one incredibly fast; this is only the third episode of season 2, and season 1 featured her apartment being devoured by Mousers.

Anyway, it’s a note supposedly by the Turtles, with an address on it. A smarter person would wonder why they didn’t just call her, like they said they would, or would verify that they left a note. April just charges out the door without wondering if this might be a trap.

Spoiler: it’s a trap, and Baxter and Shredder are waiting there for her. So Shredder calls the Turtles to notify them that he’s kidnapped her, because apparently the incredibly fast-growing and dangerous alien plant isn’t filling the entire sewer system fast enough.

“That’s April all right. I recognize her mumbles.” This is only the eighth episode, and already they’re used to her being in peril.

Since Michelangelo has a one-track mind, he’s hungry when they get there, much to the disgust of the others.

But that gives them the idea to disguise themselves as pizza delivery boys, because apparently they have those costumes AND pizzas just rattling around in their van.

“It’s four green pizza delivery boys.”

“I don’t remember ordering any pizzas, especially green ones.”

Gotta love confusing grammar.

Also, does that mean that people CAN see that they’re green when they’re in disguise, and they just don’t assume there’s anything weird about that unless they specifically know that they’re turtles?

So the Turtles burst in and start assaulting Baxter and Shredder with weapons and pizzas, and of course free April. In about five seconds, the bad guys flee the scene.

So... what was the point exactly of this little cul-de-sac? Capturing April didn’t actually serve any purpose beyond producing another fight scene and filling up a few more minutes. And it will never really be referenced again. Did the episode run a little short, and they put this in to fill it out?

Anyway, the TV happens to be on and they see the monster plant sprouting from the street and causing mayhem.

The plant is apparently big and strong enough to wave around multiple cars at the same time, which means it requires FRICKIN LASER BEAMS just to drive down the street.

But it’s nearing time for the boss battle to ensue, which means that the Turtles using FRICKIN LASER BEAMS attracts the attention of the main plant. Which kinda looks like a multi-eyed hand puppet.

It also starts eating their car, which raises interesting questions about what its roots are feeding off of, since plants generally get nutrients that way. They attack it, but get an embarrassing smackdown before the thing retreats back underground.

They just sort of abandon their van in the alley, and jump down to ask Splinter what they should do. Splinter’s advice is the same kind of wisdom that anybody who’s ever weeded can give you: tackle the root of the problem, very literally. Fortunately the plant is.... bleeding, so they can track it that way.

And it leads to... a solid brick wall.

Um, does that mean the plant broke through, went through the wall, and then replaced all the bricks exactly as they were before? Because otherwise I’m not sure how the trail can lead there.

But it’s all irrelevant anyway because it bursts through again.

It drags off Donatello, which means that it’s time for the others to break out their secret weapon: drag!

Not kidding. They actually put Michelangelo in a lady plant getup, which he hates of course. Today they’d be taking so many pictures so they could always remember this delightful occasion.

And the plant drops Donatello because it’s.... um... I think it’s meant to be horny. Which isn’t really how plants work; they just sort of have pollen and male-female parts, which insects and wind handle for them. Of course, this IS from an alien world, and technically all it needs to do to count as a plant is to photosynthesize, so... I guess the idea of a horny plant isn’t technically impossible, just very unlikely.

Yeah, my expression mirrors Raphael’s.

The other three tease Michelangelo for the remaining three seconds that he can stand being groped by a horny plant that is making kissy lips at him. Then he busts out the nunchucks and starts beating the plant with them.

Leonardo then brainstorms Splinter’s advice in a veeeeery literal way by stabbing the plant in its... stem. It’s meant to be the root, but roots tend to be underground. And despite being so huge, the plant fortunately is VERY sensitive and immediately shrivels down to a green slop.

So that evening, still not having the fragment, the Turtles celebrate with an all-meat pizza, and April brings them a venus flytrap apparently out of sadistic amusement.

VERDICT

Not bad at all. Not perfect, but it’s a big stronger than the last episode in that none of the characters had massive brain farts for no adequately explained reason... well, except maybe Baxter, but I remain unconvinced that he didn’t do that on purpose.

Anyway, it starts off a bit slow’n’silly with the whole carnival focus, and the kids who talk a lot and appear a lot for about two scenes before vanishing completely. It really kicks into gear when the whole giant plant story starts moving, especially since it provides some interesting insights into how the Eye of Sarnath is supposed to work. But I guess it was too short to actually fill out the episode, hence the April-gets-captured plot cul-de-sac.

And it has a monster-movie focus to match the monster-movie title, even with one scene of Michelangelo exclaiming that he saw this in a movie once (which wouldn’t surprise me, given that there are actually a lot of sci-fi references in this series). It’s not complicated, focusing instead on just being pretty entertaining with the straightforward story it has.

It is interesting, though, that the Turtles consistently fail at getting the fragments despite having a tracking device that exists to do nothing else. It’s also interesting that Shredder doesn’t try to use this latest fragment more than once, since presumably the crystal fragment would also create killer plant monsters with Earth plants. Giant killer rafflesias?

GRADE: B

#tmnt #tmnt 1987 #teenage mutant ninja turtles #satireknight

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logh-icebergs · 7 years

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Episode 15: The Battle of Amlitzer Starzone

October 10-15, 796/487. To the surprise of absolutely no one with any common sense, Reinhard’s admirals make quick work of several of the Alliance fleets, killing a bunch of redshirt admirals in the process. Unable to swallow the humiliation of withdrawal, Lazzll orders the remaining forces to gather in the Amlitzer starzone, where with their powers combined they can...I dunno, kill slightly more people on their way to defeat I guess. Any lingering dreams of a miraculous turning of the tides are crushed when Kircheis uses the newfangled technology of directional Seffle particles to destroy a minefield and bring his fleet of 30,000 ships to the battle as reinforcements.

Poplan!

Olivier Poplan showed up way back in “My Conquest” in the role of a rather dopey comic relief character, one of the tools the movie used to show us a variety of perspectives on the ongoing battles. We’ve glimpsed him once or twice since, but in this episode for the first time we get to focus on him a bit more; and the first thing that the OVA wants us to know about Poplan is that he’ll take any opportunity, even the twenty seconds before his Spartanian fighter is about to launch into battle, to flirt with a cute girl:

To be fair, she is indeed really cute…

There is a lot to say about this incredibly brief interaction. What Poplan actually says is “na, ii darou?” which translates most literally to “hey, isn’t it okay/good?” There are a couple factors that make this incredibly vague phrase feel like a flirtation or come-on: the way he leans toward her with a slight smile; the lowered voice. Her response reinforces this read by treating his actions as inappropriate to the current situation. (What she says is “komarimasu, tai-i, konna toki ni”—”that would be troublesome at a time like this, Lt.”) Is she reading him correctly? Could his question have actually just been about the progress of the repairs on his ship?

Well, yes, it could have been, but the accompanying body language and tone are flirty enough that at the very least there’s innuendo built into his words. Of course as she points out, this is a ridiculous time for him to be propositioning anyone; their interaction is immediately interrupted by an officer berating him for being the last plane out, Poplan takes off, and (spoiler!) we never see this woman again. What on earth, then, was the point of that twenty-second scene?

I’ve mentioned that Cazellnu plays an important role in the show by embodying some of the heteronormative structures of Alliance society: Not only does he himself have a picture-perfect wife and kids (we’ll see them soon I promise!), but we’ll also hear him explicitly voice views about the righteousness of marriage and procreation. Poplan plays a similar and complementary role, giving voice to another side of heteronormativity: the pressure for men to constantly pursue women as sexual conquests. His introduction in this scene emphasizes that sex is so constantly on his mind that he can’t resist flirting even as he flies into battle—and of course that very idea, of men as sex-obsessed and unable to control themselves around women in any situation, is another widespread norm. True to this introduction, Poplan discusses sex constantly: bragging about women he’s slept with in the past; teasing other characters about not sleeping with enough women; pontificating about the virtues of sleeping around (with women). This potentially puts characters who don’t relate to this sort of hypersexualized straight masculinity in somewhat uncomfortable situations.

There’s another angle to Poplan’s strange timing here: The fact that his ambiguous proposition is guaranteed not to go anywhere at the moment makes it entirely performative. In fact if you pay close attention to Poplan (and we will!), something around 95% of what we see involves performing or projecting heterosexuality rather than, well, actually enacting it. Obviously that doesn’t mean that the stuff he says is insincere or false, but ambiguity is always worth keeping an eye on in this show.

...and Konev!

No discussion of Poplan is complete without talking about Ivan Konev, the other star Spartanian pilot of Yang’s fleet and Poplan’s constant companion. When Poplan discovers that the firing sights on his Spartanian are misaligned, Konev covers for him to help get him back to the relative safety of the ship, leading to in my opinion the most intense scene of the whole episode.

We’ve seen Poplan and Konev deal with the stress of battle by treating it like a game: betting on the outcome back in “My Conquest,” and generally keeping up a running tally of their respective kills for bragging rights. But these are in fact life and death battles, not some video game; and faced with malfunctioning equipment that put his life and the lives of the rest of his squadron in heightened danger, Poplan’s fear and frustration come out as anger against the officer in charge of maintenance. It’s Konev who intervenes.

Poplan’s expression and posture soften the moment Konev puts a hand on his shoulder. Just that one instant establishes Konev as a grounding presence and someone Poplan has a deep connection with.

The unguarded fear that flashes in Poplan’s eyes for just a second here gives me chills.

Shit has gotten serious, and Konev’s words don’t soften that reality; but his steady expression and touch quell Poplan’s rage and help him channel his emotions into renewed focus on the battle.

Interestingly, this exchange comes to us entirely courtesy of the anime team. In the novels it’s Schenkopp who pulls Poplan off of the other officer, in a much more abbreviated version of the same scene. (Poplan actually holds a grudge against Schenkopp for stopping him before he could more thoroughly teach the guy a lesson.) The anime writers made a specific choice to change and expand this scene to show us this different side of Poplan and Konev’s dynamic. Of course we’re not here to catalogue all of the slight deviations from the novels; but a change like this suggests to me that Poplan and Konev’s relationship is one they’re particularly interested in developing, so we should be paying attention.

War

This sentiment echoes Yang’s tea speech from episode 6; finding themselves in this battle, his main goal is to find a way for as many people to survive as possible.

Zooming out from Poplan and Konev’s struggles in their little corner of the fight, the overall battle seems to go exactly how Reinhard drew it up and exactly how Yang and some of the other Alliance commanders feared. Yang places himself on damage control duty as much as possible, knowing from the beginning that their whole fleet is at a huge disadvantage especially after Reinhard’s successful strategy to tax their supplies.

During the various scattered battles we get some fun peeks at the different fighting styles of Reinhard’s admirals, for example when Mittermeyer swoops so swiftly into the midst of an Alliance fleet that he actually has to back up a bit before they can effectively fire at the enemy ships...

...While meanwhile Kircheis just stands on the bridge of his extremely red flagship like the badass he is and calmly encourages any Alliance forces that come near to surrender.

After retreating to minimize losses against Kempf’s fleet, Yang finds himself facing Kircheis and outnumbered four to one; avoiding the temptation to surrender, he concocts some sort of plan involving a U-formation and trying to attack Kircheis’s forces from three sides at once, but since he’s ordered away to Amlitzer in the middle of that fight we’ll never know what the outcome of this tactic would have been.

This gif is interesting for two reasons: one, everyone’s utter shock at Yang admitting out loud that if it weren’t for concern for the other remaining fleets he’d be tempted to surrender; and two, the ridiculous redraws that keep switching back and forth—Yang’s character design, as well as the entire background, change repeatedly in the course of these few seconds. What the hell.

The main point I want to make about this battle is, well, actually how uneventful it is. LoGH is about understanding cause and effect, inevitability, ways of thinking that lead to different outcomes. We’ve known for several episodes that the Alliance went into this invasion underprepared and for the wrong reasons, while Reinhard has carefully taken steps to weaken the Alliance forces and give himself even more of an upper hand. There are no shocking twists here: The invasion is a disaster, as it should have been, and Reinhard’s (and Oberstein’s) strategy is rewarded with a convincing victory.

Right, Bittenfeld, that's...pretty much what I said.

Stray Tidbits

This brief interaction between Reinhard and Oberstein near the end of the episode is a nice microcosm of the dynamic we’ve seen develop in previous episodes: Oberstein being kind of baffled by the concept of Reinhard fretting about one of his admirals more than the others. Hang in there Oberstein, maybe someday you’ll underst—nah, actually, probably not. Reinhard’s “damn you caught me” expression as he tries to claim he was “just checking” is too cute.

Don’t worry Reinhard! Kircheis just has to gaze at Alliance commanders with those calm blue eyes and they surrender to his every whim, you know that.

If you’re watching on Hidive, I hate to say it but for once I’ve got to score one for the fansubs: As far as I can tell what Yang says here (after Frederica reminds him that Julian has told him to cut down on drinking) is just “so you two have joined forces?” (The verb is 連帯する, rentai suru, “to have solidarity/share responsibility.”) Cute (if a bit weird) as the Hidive version is, it's a definite stretch.

And while we're at it, here's the original laserdisc version, complete with random blue tube in the background.

Hidive subbers, I would read your fanfic but for the official translations let's stick to what they actually say...

Am I a terrible person if this gif just makes me laugh?

#Legend of Galactic Heroes #Legend of the Galactic Heroes #author: Rebecca #Amlitzer #battle #war #Poplan #Konev #heteronormativity #whoops

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theconservativebrief · 5 years

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About 300,000 workers in Arkansas are getting a raise.

Voters in the state approved Issue 5, a ballot measure that will gradually hike the state’s minimum wage to $11 an hour by 2021. That’s a 29 percent increase over three years.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in the state who earn the minimum wage will get larger paychecks starting next year, when the first wage increase goes into effect. The current minimum hourly wage is $8.50 and will jump to $9.25 in January.

Arkansas is one of two states with minimum-wage hikes on the ballot Tuesday. In neighboring Missouri, voters approved a similar measure Tuesday to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

With the passage of Issue 5, Arkansas joins a growing number of states that have raised the minimum wage as corporate profits are soaring.

In January, a total of 18 states raised their minimum wage, six of which will eventually hit $15 an hour. Some of them happened through similar ballot initiatives, others through the regular legislative process. And they aren’t just deeply blue states. For example, Arizona, Colorado, and Maine boosted the minimum wage this year to about $10 an hour, and will reach $12 an hour by 2020.

The measures are viewed as a solution to one of the biggest problems plaguing the American economy: The nation’s lowest-paid workers have hardly seen their incomes budge even as the US economy continues to grow and enrich those at the top of the income ladder. The ballot measures are also a response to congressional inaction on the issue — lawmakers in Washington, DC, haven’t raised the $7.25 federal minimum wage in nearly 10 years.

Arkansas has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, and about a quarter of the state’s workers earn the current minimum wage of $8.50 an hour.

Arkansas workers have wanted to raise the minimum wage for years. But despite widespread support for the idea, Republican lawmakers voted down a bill in 2013 that would have raised the minimum wage from $6.25 to $8.25. (Meanwhile, state lawmakers themselves have gotten huge raises.)

The next year, in 2014, labor and religious groups gathered enough signatures to bypass the legislature and put the issue directly to voters. They overwhelmingly voted to give workers a raise. That’s why the current minimum wage is $8.50 an hour.

But as the economy improves and the cost of living increases, workers are struggling to pay their bills. The average worker in Arkansas needs to earn $13.84 an hour to afford a two-bedroom home, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Republicans control the state legislature and governor’s mansion, and they overwhelmingly oppose the ballot measure. The state’s chamber of commerce tried to knock the measure off the ballot, with the misleading claim that it would kill jobs. Issue 5 also survived a court challenge.

Yet the idea of raising wages is quite popular among voters. A September poll showed about 60 percent support the measure — twice as many as those who oppose it.

Full-time workers in Arkansas who are paid the current minimum wage earn about $17,680 a year, according to a new study by the National Employment Law Project, which supports Issue 5. The study estimates that increase would boost incomes for about 300,000 people in the state — about one in four workers. By 2021, when the full $11 minimum wage is phased in, these workers will be earning about $1,040 more per year.

Raising the minimum wage has even become a divisive issue in the state’s congressional races.

Three of Arkansas’s four members of Congress in the House of Representatives (all four are Republicans and all are facing reelection) have come out against Issue 5, saying it will hurt the local economy. Meanwhile, the four Democrats running against them support the minimum wage increase.

Original Source -> Voters in Arkansas just gave 300,000 workers a raise

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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hyenainlipstick-blog · 7 years

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How I Became Disillusioned with ‘Mainstream’ Feminism

This may come as a shock to some people, but I used to be deeply committed to the ideology of mainstream fourth wave feminism. I devoured books like Full Frontal Feminism and BitchFEST, read feminist blogs compulsively, and of course updated my feminist tumblog a dozen or more times a day.

I’d casually been a feminist all my life (what’s not to love about women’s rights?), but like many women, I didn’t get serious about it until college. I was struggling to come out as a lesbian (I now identify as bi) as well as all the normal struggles of living on my own for the first time, and it felt like the entire world was against me.

This was 2008 when LGBT rights were nowhere near as mainstream as they are today. I was raised in western Pennsylvania and entered high school the same year George W. Bush based a large portion of his re-election campaign on denying gay people civil rights. Being gay was not something that was ever even discussed where I grew up.

Getting into feminism was almost like a religious awakening for me. It seemed to be the only ideology that cared about people like me at all. I had very serious social anxiety and depression at the time, and online feminist spaces were some of the few places I felt comfortable expressing myself.

To make a long story short, my anxiety got to the point where I ended up dropping out of college, and a few months later, I came out to my family and ended up living on the street for about half a year.

Most of my waking hours were spent just trying to kill time, waiting for the shelter to open at 10pm. I spent a lot of time at the public library, and used their computers for as long as I could. I blogged about my experiences and found a lot of sympathetic voices I was grateful to have, but I started having doubts too.

I worked hard to make the shelter and day center I frequented more in line with my idea of feminism. I constantly badgered the staff for, in my eyes, failing to create a safe space. One thing I always yelled about (and I do mean yelled, sometimes slamming my hands on the table) was how people would casually refer to themselves and their friends by LGBT slurs. In retrospect, the staff was overworked and had more important problems, and it wasn’t my place to condemn others for reclaiming slurs just because they made me uncomfortable, but at the time all I could focus on how everyone wasn’t living up to my expectations.

I also encouraged my friends to read more feminist books, but most of them found the books out of touch and not very relevant to their experience as homeless, queer women struggling just to keep their heads above water. As time went on, it was hard not to see their point.

Meanwhile, the feminists I encountered online seemed to spend most of their time complaining about issues I found really inconsequential. The term ‘microaggression’ wasn’t popularized yet, but the core concept had already taken root. I was on the verge of suicide everyday (I was hospitalized three times when I was homeless and would later attempt suicide twice), I got six hours sleep a night at most (sometimes sleeping on cement), and I hardly ever had enough food. People online said supportive things, but the words increasingly felt hollow. Everyone was focused on how they were personally ‘oppressed’ by things that seemed more like pet peeves to me than real problems, and there wasn’t anyone who seemed serious about helping women like me.

However, anytime I brought up my concerns, I was accused of concern trolling, trivializing patriarchy, not being a real feminist, or secretly being an MRA troll. (Nice to see that some things haven’t changed.) This was around 2011, and ‘checking your privilege’ was really starting to take off. It frustrated me to no end that people much better off than me would dismiss all my opinions by saying I was just too privileged to understand real oppression.

So I dropped out. I deleted my blog, stopped reading and commenting on feminist sites, and generally avoided social media all together. Considering how much worse call-out culture has gotten in the intervening years, I’m glad I left when I did.

For a time, I refused to even call myself a feminist. I would think “I didn’t leave feminism, feminism left me.” I never stopped believing in the importance of women’s liberty, but I’d completely lost faith in modern mainstream feminism to make any real progress toward that end.

I was completely demoralized, but as more time passed, I began to grow angry instead. I was angry at the radicals and the nitpickers and the armchair theorists for driving me away from something that was so important to me. I was angry that a tiny sliver of feminists claim to speak for all women (claim to speak for me!) when they never do more than pay lip service to the real world barriers poor and working class women face. And I was angry that women like me were being shouted down, maligned and told we’re not real feminists because we’re not ideologically pure enough by the standards of feminist academia. I mean, fucking christ, ain’t I a woman?!

So you can insult me, say I’m not a real feminist, say I’m a dumb whore of the patriarchy, I don’t care anymore. Believe me, I’ve survived far worse. I am a feminist, and I won’t let ideologues bully me into abandoning the label or being silent any longer. To me, being a feminist means standing up and speaking your truth, even when everyone tells you you’re wrong. I don’t criticize feminism in spite of being a feminist; I criticize feminism because I am a feminist. I believe philosophies are like swords; they must be beaten with hammers so they can become stronger and sharper. Feminism is too important to the wellbeing of society not to criticize.

When planning this blog, I really debated whether or not to share the more dramatic details of my personal history. I believe a woman should be judged by the quality of her ideas, not the melodrama of her sob story, and I know there are a lot of virtue-signaling hypocrites who will praise any idea so long as it comes from someone with the right oppression credentials. I’d rather be hated on my own merits than loved for spurious, superficial reasons.

But hopefully I’ve at least shown that not every woman that criticizes mainstream feminism is just some privileged little princess or too ignorant to know better. Feminism should empower women to speak up for themselves, even when no one wants to listen, and if I can in some small way help set that example, I will have no regrets.

#feminism #feminist #personal #long reads #suicide #homelessness #lgbt #lgbtq

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Voters in two conservative states will have the chance to give hundreds of thousands of workers a pay raise in November. Ballot initiatives in Arkansas and Missouri would boost wages for nearly 1 million low-wage workers, whose incomes have hardly budged even as the US economy continues to grow.

In Missouri, the ballot initiative is called Proposition B; it would gradually hike the current minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2023. The current minimum is $7.85. If the measure is approved, the first increase would go into effect next year, with wages rising to $8.60 an hour.

In neighboring Arkansas, voters will face a similar question, called Issue 5. If approved, the minimum wage will rise to $11 by 2021. The minimum wage is currently $8.50.

Polling shows that both measures have wide public support, despite repeated Republican efforts to block any increases to the states’ minimum wage. If voters approve the measures, Arkansas and Missouri will join a growing number of states that are raising the minimum wage at a time when corporate profits are soaring.

It’s also a response to congressional inaction on the issue — lawmakers in Washington, DC, haven’t raised the $7.25 federal minimum wage in nearly 10 years.

“We can’t expect workers to wait for lawmakers to get their shit together,” said Jonathan Schleifer, executive director of the Fairness Project, a nonprofit in DC that helped put the measures on the state ballots.

In January, a total of 18 states raised their minimum wage, six of which will eventually hit $15 an hour. Some of them happened through similar ballot initiatives, others through the regular legislative process. And they aren’t just blue states. For example, Arizona, Colorado, and Maine boosted the minimum wage this year to about $10 an hour, and will reach $12 an hour by 2020.

Republicans and business groups in Arkansas and Missouri have tried to derail efforts to get the minimum wage measures on the ballot, but both have managed to survive.

Here’s what you need to know about the two biggest labor issues on the ballot in November, which would impact the lives of nearly 1 million low-wage workers.

Arkansas has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, and about a quarter of the state’s workers earn the current minimum wage of $8.50 an hour. If voters approve Issue 5 in November, they would get a modest raise, earning $11 an hour by 2021.

Republicans control the state legislature and governor’s mansion, and they overwhelmingly oppose the ballot measure. The state’s chamber of commerce tried to knock the measure off the ballot, with the predictable, misleading claim that it would kill jobs. Issue 5 survived a court challenge.

Yet the idea of raising wages is quite popular among voters. A September poll showed about 60 percent support the measure — twice as many as those who oppose it.

Raising the minimum wage has even become a divisive issue in the state’s congressional races.

Missouri voters will have the chance to weigh in on Proposition B, which would hike the minimum wage higher than in Arkansas, but over a longer period of time. The minimum wage would reach $12 per hour in 2023.

The current minimum wage in Missouri is $7.85, slightly higher than the federal minimum of $7.25. The last time the state raised the minimum wage was also through a ballot initiative, in 2016, when 75 percent of voters approved it.

But every year since at least 2014, Republican lawmakers in Missouri have voted down proposals to increase the minimum wage. The last time that happened was in January, when two Democratic lawmakers introduced two separate bills: one that would have eventually raised the wage floor to $12 an hour, and another that would have raised it to $15. Neither bill made it to the floor for a vote.

Instead, the Republican-controlled state legislature tried to block local efforts to raise wages. In 2017, the state passed a law barring cities and counties from raising the minimum wage above the state minimum.

The only way to raise wages, then, was to take the issue directly to voters. In May, labor groups collected more than 120,000 signatures to add the question to the November ballot.

If voters approve Proposition B, it would impact even more workers than a wage hike in Arkansas. About 677,000 workers in the state would get a raise if voters pass Proposition B, according to a similar analysis by the National Employment Law Project. That’s one out of every four workers in the state.

The ballot question has also become a central issue in the state’s highly competitive Senate race. Claire McCaskill, the state’s Democratic senator, has said she supports the ballot initiative. Her challenger, Republican Josh Hawley, has said he would vote against it.

“I’m going to vote no on the Missouri measure because I’m worried that it will raise the minimum wage here quickly and out of step with other states,” Hawley said during a debate earlier this month.

That’s not true, as the fact-checkers at the Associated Press later pointed out.

Both ballot initiatives are expected to boost voter turnout in November, which is already expected to be high. And if Missouri and Arkansas voters feel the same way most Americans do, they will probably give workers a raise.

Original Source -> 2 high-stakes ballot measures could boost wages for nearly 1 million workers

via The Conservative Brief

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