#this kind of shit should be put up by disability resource workers from the start tbh

[firelord-frowny]

honestly like!

i HATE!!!! the very CONCEPT of guns. and i’m theoretically SO fundamentally opposed to violence. 

but that opposition is based on an idealist assumption that no one is doing anything that they need to be stopped from doing. 

and there are obviously a fucking hell of a lot of people doing a fucking hell of a lot of vile shit, and no amount of ~peaceful protesting~ or litigating or campaigning or Reaching Across The Aisle is going to stop them, and it’s fucking RIDICULOUS that anyone at all thinks people should just wait patiently for The Powers That Be to spontaneously manifest a conscience and finally quit trying to maim and murder people For Funsies. 

i would LOVE it we could just hug them into submission and invite them over for tea and chit chat and take their ugly ass hand and smile at them and show them that I’m Just A Normal Person Like You and have them finally decide to stop wanting me to die. and honestly, some people REALLY CAN be reached through those kinds of methods. and i don’t think people should stop trying to do that. and if anything, i think MORE people need to be trying to do that.

but i ALSO think that more people need to start punching some bigots in the fucking face. 

if self proclaimed conservatives and right wingers and proud wimpy boys get to go around committing terroristic acts against other peoples, and if the politicians and ceos they stan for refuse to take any actions to stop them at best, and at worst go out of their way to FACILITATE the suffering of all but bigoted, well-off white people....

then we should get to punch them in the fucking face and not have anyone say WORD ONE about it. 

they wanna be all big and bad and parade around threatening and committing violence against teachers and health care workers and black people and asian people and jewish people and indigenous people and women of all backgrounds, then they should be fucking tough enough to cope with a goddamn punch in the face every now and then. they should WELCOME every fist that ever collides with their flesh. 

if they want a fucking fight, we should GIVE THEM A FIGHT! and make sure they fucking lose.  make sure the pathetic little ~civil war~ they’re begging for is HUMILIATINGLY short. chase their fucking asses into the most barren, useless parts of the world where they can be vile all by themselves. 

bc i SWEAR TO GOD, the only reason why these people have any power at all to impact anything or anyone is because people LET THEM. not because they’re soooo smart, or they’re soooo dangerous, or there are sooooo many of them. it’s STRICTLY because an enormous majority of bare-minimum-decent people care more about Taking The Moral High Ground than about actually doing what’s necessary to disable evil people from doing evil things.

This is a hella problematic way to put it, buuuut

black people know not to do or say certain things to a cop because we’ve been conditioned to fear the consequences of even the most benign ~infractions.~ We swallow our fucking pride and whip out those “yes sirs” and “no sirs” and we move slowly and we try to keep our hands visible at all costs because we’ve seen, over and over again, for DECADES (centuries, really) what those people might do to us if our hand isn’t totally visible for a fraction of a second. And sometimes it doesn’t even work. Sometimes we do everything in our power to demonstrate that there’s no need to hurt us, and we get murdered anyway. 

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE if those wack ass bigots could learn to fear the consequences of being disgusting out loud and in public? 

Imagine if, over the last several decades, malicious bigots were met with SWIFT physical consequences every time they did some fucked up shit. 

do you think they’d be so bold now? 

i don’t. 

i think if they thought for one second that whoever they pull a gun on might pull one out back at them, then they would keep their fucking mouths shut and behave. i think if they LEGITIMATELY thought that they’re actual lives and their actual freedom were at stake, they wouldn’t say SHIT. Because they know that whether or not they have to wear a mask or get vaccinated or whateverthefuck has absolutely NO real impact on their place in the world. there is NO. WAY. that they would be all up in arms over something so fucking absurd if they thought anyone would actually try to hurt them in response. 

they don’t think anyone is going to show up at their dumb lil protests with tear gas. they don’t think an angry BLM activist is going to shoot up their country club in retaliation against the oppressive policies they support. they don’t think anyone is going to stop them on the street and start screaming in their face and threaten to kill them. they don’t think they’re going to lose a damn fucking thing. they think they’re literally going to just waltz into some of the most secure buildings in the world and wreak havoc, and that NO ONE is going to do shit about it. 

that’s the problem :) :) :) :) :) :) 

the problem isn’t that these people exist. i mean, it fucking sucks that they exist and if they could somehow cease to exist, whether by alien abduction or some sort of freak simultaneous lightning strike or WHATEVER, i would be THRILLED. but just existing doesn’t hurt anyone. Having a stupid belief doesn’t automatically make someone dangerous. It just makes them a shitty person.

But to have a stupid belief and to feel SO ENTITLED to acting upon those beliefs???

those motherfuckers need to fear for their safety. those motherfuckers need to be SO PETRIFIED that they dig themselves underground and bury themselves alive and NEVER resurface. 

i don’t understand how, at this point, with over half a million people DEAD because of the actions of these assholes, and with thousands of people CONTINUING to drop dead over it every day, the so-called “good guys” still don’t see fit to resort to drastic measures to render these people INCAPABLE of causing further harm. 

so many people have died. not just in the time of covid, but decades before that. so many people are murdered in the name of carrying out the pettiest whims of the most wretched people on earth. People get injured. People get poisoned by their own water supply or the very air they breathe. People get sick because they’re forced to live under unhealthy circumstances, and then they DIE because they can’t afford treatment for the illnesses they developed because of the unhealthy circumstances that made them sick in the first place! Children starve. Global warming sets people on fire and drowns them and destroys homes and lives and landscapes. 

literally, at WHAT point does it become acceptable to finally just declare war on these fucking demons? WHEN do we meet them where they’re at and start punching back instead of just curling up and trying to survive the attack?

i KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW that there are groups out there who are taking direct action in some form or another. but CLEARLY it’s not enough.

and i ALSO know that there are MANY PEOPLE who have the actual skills and resources to stage a legitimate countereffort, and they’re just. not. doing it. 

we’ve got all these vile-ass ~ex military~ types boasting about their arsenal and how they intend to use it to reign terror upon innocent people. these fuckfaces who are LITERALLY HOLDING PUBLIC OFFICE and saying Out Loud that they want to attack us. and their peers exalt them for it. 

you CANNOT tell me that there are 0 ~ex military~ people who are sympathetic to the cause of resisting these malicious bigots. you CANNOT tell me that there aren’t people in public office who know that something MUST be done, and who have the POWER and ACCESS to do something - even if it’s “unlawful.” 

but they’re not doing it. :) because they’re weak. :) and they fear for their lives in a way that ~the right~ has NEVER had to contend with. A democratic state senator knows someone might hunt them down and try to kill them if they say anything ~too radical~. a republican state senator is confident that he could literally call for the public execution of someone and be met only with a pathetic verbal reprimand from some spineless liberal congressman who bends over backward to be Respectful And Fair as they gently try to explain why it’s not okay to facilitate mass death in every demographic but their own.

can somebody with the actual power and means to do so PLEASE start doing ANYTHING to terrorize these people back to the bland, tasteless, spiritually bankrupt cesspit they congealed in? When one of these american terrorists brandishes a gun in someone’s face, can someone PLEASE brandish their own gun right back at them? THEY should be the ones who are too terrified to speak up. Not us. THEY should be the ones compelled to look over their shoulder. 

im so sick of a world where mass suffering and exploitation are accepted as Just The Natural Order Of Things. instead of a harrowing dystopia that should be burned to the ground quick, fast, and in a motherfucking hurry.

[sortblog]

Nørrebro Pride

It is difficult to know where to begin. It is difficult for me to know what to say and where to start. 

Last year Andrea Coloma and Cecilie Viet drank too much wine and hyped each other enough with talks about marching down Nørrebro. These beautiful people were tired and wanted something new. And I was tired too and foolish enough to join them. Last year we were overwhelmed by your power – but this year! Holy shit!

This year – please put your hand up! Give your self a round of applause. This year a lot of people are coming together. This is something else now. There has been so much effort into the community kitchen, to the security team, to outreach, to meeting with different groups the past six months. There are many lessons we have learnt organising this year, are learning right now, and have to continue to learn for this to continue. Thank you. 

And there’s a reason that you’re here; there is a reason why I am here. First of all, Pride is political! Queer and trans folk face hardships – both locally and globally. Isolated from families we create our own. For wanting to live in the bodies that we desire; for wanting a world in which we can desire, we are shamed, silenced, institutionalised, sterilised, assaulted, raped, and killed – either by others or the straight world order leading us to kill ourselves at extreme rates. Sometimes going outside is the hardest: being reminded of what limited place you have. Even if I am privileged I am reminded that the public is a hetero public, it is a white public – this was made totally clear to me just days ago when a man told in the calmest voice that if only I followed him, he and his friends could burn me alive – with no police watching he added. Repeatedly he told me of his intended crime. Repeatedly I witnessed how no one intervened. Repeatedly I was reminded that my black body, my black queer trans body is a body that can always be transgressed and don’t belong in this world. Reminded that I do not know how old I will get, faced with the reality that way too many black trans and gender non-conforming folks do not live to see 40. 

What ever reasons you have felt to come here today; whether it is to grieve loved ones you have lost or the lives that you cannot yet live; if it is to be joyous with friends and comrades; or you do not yet know why you’re here –  know that you belong, on this earth. That you deserve to belong here. 

But there are also other reasons why we are here. 

Nørrebro is a battlefield. It is one of several places politicians like to legislate on and against. When the government legislates against the homeless it’s also about the people here in Nørrebro; when the government makes squatting illegal it’s about the political extra-parliamentary movements in Nørrebro; when the government and police agree on stop-and-searching and special zones it is about brown and black boys in Nørrebro; when the government wants to privatise and limit social housing it’s about controlling Nørrebro & Nordvest (Gellerup, Vollsmose, etc); when it allows for Rasmus Paludan to be paraded around it is about provoking Nørrebro, and earning cheap political points in the rest of this fucking racist country; when the government legislates against muslim women wearing the veil it is concerned with Nørrebro. We could go on.

How the government acts when it sees Nørrebro and other places like it, is nothing short of fascism; a place infested with brown and black people and migrants who should be deported, vilified and discriminated against; a place where working-class communities are to be punished with higher rents and costs of living and cuts to social infrastructure. Until all of Copenhagen is free of single-mothers, muslim women and men, the sick and homeless folks, working-class folks and impoverished folks, black and brown folks, the government will not rest. The government wants many of us – some more than others – gone, and this neighbourhood turned into a paradise for the white middle- and upper classes. 

It does not make sense to talk about what Nørrebro Pride is – because it is nothing yet –  but all of the things it wants to be and could be.

Nørrebro Pride wants to be anti-commercial and anti-gentrification, but for this to happen we have to find ways of making sure businesses don’t just pinkwash themselves with our lives, but also to make sure that everyone – with or without papers – in this neighbourhood, in this city, in this country have access and the right to housing, transport, health care, safety, and workers rights. If we want a Pride which takes gentrification seriously, we have to think of how to stop global capital mangement funds like Blackstone’s undercover assault on the neighbourhood, as well as be ready to put our bodies on the line when people in Mjølnerparken soon will be evicted. We need to prevent and stop this.

Nørrebro Pride wants Black people, Indigenous people and People of Colour to the front, but, as it was stressed during the community kitchen thursday, must acknowledge the limits of this when even marginalised communities aren’t even equal between each other; when anti-Blackness runs through society and every community; when Greenland is still colonised; when Denmark sold 100.000 black caribbean people to the USA, who still cannot vote to this day; when muslim communities are targeted daily; when adoptees are ignored and their lives made into accessories for white heterosexuals and increasingly the lgbt community; when there are people in camps. In order to organise together, it will require work; it will require staying with the trouble; it will require conscious effort. It will require time. It will require white people decentralising themselves. 

Nørrebro Pride wants to be accessible but is not. There is work to do in making the City of Copenhagen to make a place for people without homes or living on the streets; people unable to attain shelter and health care because of their lack of cpr-numbers; people who are racialised and denied access to even the smallest resources to make our communities accessible; people with disabilities facing an infrastructure that tries to deny and limit their agency at every moment. 

Let Nørrebro Pride be one of many places where we can conspire about our next actions! Let it be the place where lovers meet, kiss and fuck!  

But most of all do not walk away from today without anger, pride or a plan. We need to build; we need to organise; and we need stronger communities! If every poor person, homeless person, working class person, migrant, black person, person of colour is not to be driven from this neighborhood or the next or the next – we need to ask questions and act on them.

Close your eyes *insert joke*

There are things we need to ask ourselves and act upon together.

Who gets the right to have a home? 

What kind of people have a right to claim a home? Home is often defined by white heteronormativity, but who are all of the other people that do not fit into that box? 

What do we have to leave behind to be welcomed home? 

How can we reclaim home? 

What does home mean if you cannot leave it, are forced to stay in it, or do not have access to it? 

How do we keep our cultures and histories alive when separated from our roots? 

How do we connect across generations? 

How do we make sure that our movements don’t just become the next hashtag that you can sell on a t-shirt? 

How do we make sure that it isn’t about individuals who can earn money of the struggle? Liberation doesn’t pay; it costs. 

How can we create sustainable economic structures that allow marginalised communities the time to have their voices heard and their own power grown? Survival is no joke. 

What do you have access to that others do not? Are you sharing it?

How do those of us privileged outside the asylum system, create sustainable structures that are capable of fighting for justice together with those imprisoned in the camps? 

How do we make sure our own communities stop accepting the premise of border regimes? 

How do we make sure our own communities stand in solidarity with sex workers? 

How do we prevent the lives of queer and trans folks from being marginalized in the struggle? As we have been in every struggle, in every political space, on every continent. No matter the movement, no matter the time. 

How do we ensure that queer and trans lives don’t become excuses for bombing, sanctioning or further exploiting the countries all diasporic folks are part of? 

How do we expand? How do we sustain? How do we lift each other? As a close friend and comrade says: How do we learn to organize with intention? What shall we do to remind each other of the fact, that we once too believed in the lies of the system? 

Open your eyes. And dream. 

Thank you. 

#nørrebropride

[clubofinfo]

Expert: While supporters of our two-party system wring their hands over the sensationalist nonsense reported by the mainstream media, we thought it might be worth touching on the most dangerous lie of all-time: capitalism. It’s an all-encompassing delusion, including: the myth of continual technological progress, the mendacious assumptions of endless economic growth, the lie that constant bombardments of media and consumer goods make us happy, and the omissions of our involvement in the exploitation of the planet and the resources of distant, poorer nations, among other things. We’ve taken the time to hash out some of the most pernicious mendacities we’ve come across in our (relatively) young lives, in the workplace, in our private lives, and in the media. *** Please share these counter-arguments far and wide, in order to educate your fellow citizens, and, if necessary, to provide the intellectual beat-downs needed when arguing with pro-capitalists. So without further ado, here is our list of the most devious “Lies that Capitalists Tell Us”: 1) Wealth will “trickle down” It’s hard to believe an economic policy that conjures images of urination could be wrong, but the idea is as bankrupt as the lower classes who have been subjected to the trickling. Less than ten people now have the financial wealth equivalent to half the planet, and the trickling seems a lot more like a mad cash-grab by the (morally bankrupt) elites. Rather than trickle down, the 1% and their lackeys have hoovered up the majority of new wealth created since the 2008 crash. After 40 years of stagnant wages in the US the people feel more shit on than trickled upon. It’s not a mistake that the elite reap most of the profits: the capitalist system is designed this way.  It always has been, and will be, until we the people find the courage to tear it down and replace it with something better. 2) I took all the risks It can be argued the average employee takes far more risks in any job than the average person who starts a business with employees. The reason being is that the person starting a business usually has far more wealth, where most Americans can’t afford a 500 dollar emergency; meaning if they lose a job or go without work for any stretch it means some tough decisions have to be made. A person with even a failing business cannot be fired, but the employee can be fired for almost any reason imaginable. They are operating without a net at all times. The capitalist uses all sorts of public infrastructure to get his/her company off the ground. From everything to the roads to get you to your job, colleges, public utilities, tax breaks, electricity, etc. Even the internet itself was created from public research. Yet elite business owners still have the audacity, and are so full of hubris, that they believe in the hyper-individualist, macho, rugged-cowboy/pioneer facade they affect. 3) I could pay you more if there were less government regulations Many capitalists argue that layers of government bureaucracy prevent them from paying their employees a fairer, living wage. This is a huge whopper, as our regulations (like no child labor, a minimum wage, disability and worker’s compensation, basic environmental impact studies, etc) actually provide safety against the worst type of exploitation of workers and destruction of the land by corporations. Without these minimum regulations, an age of even more outright neo-feudalism would occur, where employees could be laid-off and rehired ad-infinitum, based on downward market wage forces, at the wishes of ever-more capricious owners, management, and CEOs. 4) If you work hard, one day you can be rich like us (We live in a meritocracy) America is not a meritocracy, and no one should think it is. There exists no tie to the intelligence of work done or the amount of it that guarantees success. Rather to be rich depends more on either being born into it, or being exceptionally good at exploiting others so one may take the bulk of the proceeds for themselves. This is the magic formula for wealth in this ever so “exceptional” land – exploit, exploit, exploit. Inheritance and exploitation is how the rich get rich. To understand the exploitation aspect takes some understanding of how the rich function. Next to none of the super rich become that way solely by meritocracy. Their income is created through complex webs of utilizing leverage usually to extract some form of passive income. They are the rentier class or con artists, or both. You only have to look at what the rich are dabbling in. Like Robert Mercer, for instance, who made his money via “a hedge fund that makes its money by using algorithms to model and trade on the financial markets.” Skimming money off corrupt financial markets hardly seems like a worthwhile activity that contributes anything to humanity. It’s a hustle. Or take Bill Gates, who did some programming for a few years, poorly, and became rich by landing a series of deals with IBM initially, and then by passively making money off the share values of Microsoft. The late Steve Jobs may have been one of the more hands-on billionaires, but even he required thousands of enslaved Asian hands to extract the kind of  profits Apple was able to make. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson almost certainly has organized crime links, as if owning a casino wasn’t enough of a con to begin with. Rich DeVos became a billionaire by running a pyramid scheme most are familiar with called Amway. The Walton family, owners of Wal-Mart, pays a median wage of 10 bucks an hour (far below a living wage), they strong arm vendors, and also rely on products made with working conditions that resemble old world slavery, while having more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans. There’s just no way to make that kind of money without having a major market advantage and then profiteering off it. Lie, cajole, coerce, manipulate, bribe, rig, and hustle. These are the tools of the rich. No one is worth this kind of money and everyone needs each other’s help to function, but in the minds of the rich they consider themselves the primary cogs in the machine worthy of their money for doing not much else than holding leverage over others and exploiting it. 5) This is as good as it gets (there is no alternative, TINA) Through a process of gaslighting and double-bind coercion the choices we are fed are propagandized via controlled media outlets owned and operated by elites. We are told our choices must be between the democrats or republicans, attacking the Middle East or face constant terrorism, unfettered capitalism or state run communism. We are given binary choices that lack all nuance, and nuance is the enemy of all those who seek to control and exploit. They feed us a tautology of simpleton narratives which unfortunately do exactly what they hoped, keep people dumb and biting on their red herrings. Capitalists make it seem as if there is no alternative because they hoard all the money, have all the hired guns, and pay off teams of servile lawyers, judges, and lobbyists to write and enforce their anti-life laws. Capitalists demand “law and order” whenever their servant classes get too restless. In general, the most hardened, dogmatic capitalists exhibit bewilderment and/or disgust at genuine human emotions like joy, creativity, spontaneity, and love. Many capitalists have an unconscious death wish, and want to drag the rest of us and the mother Earth down with them. Capitalists have stolen all the farmlands, hold all the patents to technology, and don’t pay enough to mass amounts of citizens to get out of the rat race and get back to live off the land. The screws are turned a little tighter every year. If we are not done in by massive natural disasters or an economic collapse, expect a revolution to occur, hopefully a non-violent one. 6) We give back to the community Corporations set out to create non-profits as a public relations move. They cause the problems and then put small band-aids on the gaping wounds they have directly contributed to and use the charity as a source of plausible deniability to obscure the fact that they are exactly what we think they are: greedy. Handing out bread-crumbs after you’ve despoiled, desecrated, and bulldozed millions of hectares of valuable habitat is not fooling anyone. The elite one-percenters are the enemies of humankind and the biosphere itself. 7) The system (and economic theory) is rational and takes into account social and environmental costs People tend to think someone somewhere is regulating things to keep us safe. They look around and see sophisticated technology, gleaming towers in the sky, and what they believe to be is a complex intelligent world. But in truth no one is running the show. The world functions as a mad cash grab driven by neo-liberal ideology. Our leaders are driven by power, fame, and money, and exhibit strong psychopathic, sociopathic, and narcissistic traits. The problems of modern industrial capitalism and its impact on the world are clear – our exploitation of the resources, people, and other species are a direct result of our consumer-based infinite growth model. Just a few of the problems we face are species extinction, climate change, ocean acidification, and a toxic carcinogen filled trash dump of a planet that reached population overshoot decades ago. If the system was rational, we would begin planning to lower birth rates to decrease the world’s population, and voluntarily provide education, decent, dignified jobs, as well as birth control and contraception to women worldwide. We live by money values, and think in money terminology. When we discuss healthcare the topic arises about how to pay for it before nearly anything else. The priority isn’t on saving lives but how to pay for things. Yes, how will we pay for healthcare when banks can create money on a computer through the magic of fractional reserve banking, which they often use to bail out their crony friends. The money isn’t real but the implications of restricting it from the populace are. Money is created out of thin air by the magic of the Federal Reserve, yet we have all heard our bosses, and the pricks in Washington complaining that “we don’t have enough money for that” when it comes to healthcare, improving schools, and humanitarian relief for the poorest parts of the world. Again, if the system was rational, world poverty would be solved within a few short years. Money destined for weapons and “defense” could be used domestically as well as abroad to Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, and there is more than enough money (75 trillion is the annual world GDP, approximately 15 trillion in the US alone) to pay for a good home, clothing, and food for every family worldwide, with an all-renewable powered energy grid. 8) The future will be better When Trump’s slogan “make America great again” was on the lips of every alt-right fascist, most of us stopped to ask, when was it great? The truth is that politicians have been promising something better since the inception of this country and “better” has never arrived. There is always another expensive war to fight and another financial meltdown occurring on average every eight years. Wait, you might say, what about those sweet post-WWII growth years brought about by the New Deal? The sad truth is those years were only materially beneficial to white, middle-class men, who were highly sexist, racist, and complicit in incubating today’s consumer-driven Empty Society. The post-WWII era was an aberration in our history and the result of having more jobs available than people, but as the country rapidly exploited its natural resources and reached the limits of linear growth while the population exploded the leverage that allowed people to have higher wages receded. Even though efficiency increased enormously, the people lost leverage to demand higher wages. Without leverage held by the people capitalism will return to its status quo goal – exploit, and that’s just what it did. In the US, corporations grew richer and the people grew poorer starting from the mid 1970’s to the present. 9) It’s Just Business Employees devote years of their lives to companies and when they are let go they are told it’s nothing personal, it’s just business. This is how all bad news is delivered even when personal. It says we are cold-hearted organizations that adhere to a bottom line first and human needs second. So know when they say “it’s just business” what they are saying is understand we are sharks, and acting like a shark is just what we do. This is also the logic behind defending war crimes and similar atrocities. Nations like the US claim they have a “responsibility to protect” civilians from terrorists. Then, when American bombs kill civilians (or their proxies use US-made weapons), they are referred to as “collateral damage”. 10) Financial markets & debt are necessary The health of the entire economy is too often gauged by the stock markets. But the reality about financial markets is they are extraneous gambling machines designed to place downward pressure on companies to post good numbers to elevate share prices. These financial markets funnel capital to a smaller and smaller number of multinational corporations every year, and perpetuate non-linear economic growth (and therefore more pollutants, CO2, pesticides, strip mining, razing of forests) that is killing the planet. Debt is the most fundamental lie in our economy. Money is only supposed to be a tool to move goods efficiently around a market, but for money itself to be a wealth engine is a Ponzi scheme. And we all know how that ends. *** For a wider taste of our oeuvre, visit Reason Bowl Radio to watch Jason expose the Trump administration for the sorry sacks of shit that they are and discuss current events, as well as Jason and Bill’s commentary and ramblings about topics such as psychedelics, the nature of consciousness, and reflections on how to effect social change. http://clubof.info/