maristongunion library

[silversarcasm]

the idea of people having to be ‘useful’ is just so gross, like people do not exist to be used

having to produce something and have a use is a capitalist ideal and not an intrinsic part of humanity

just by being alive you are human and you are worth something and you can never be useless

[fluttersheep]

this applies to animals as well

[bloodblonde89]

“Having to like DO THINGS is SO OPPRESSIVE. No one had to like DO THINGS before evil capitalism. In ancient times food, water, and shelter just existed and everything was taken care of for me”

Guess what happened to people who didn’t do things before capitalism? They died. Cause if you weren’t hunting, gathering, or useful in some aspect of nature. You were killed, died or starvation, dehydration, or exposure. 

Being useful is literally part of our biology. Fucking moron. You pull some idea out of your ass because you literally don’t want to get off your ass. 

[silversarcasm]

I’m not saying nobody should ever do things ever, I’m saying people don;t have to produce to an arbitrary standard in order to prove their right to live

And if you really think disabled people deserve to die if we can’t ‘contribute’ or be useful in a way you approve of then congrats youre a fucking monster

[alliluyevas]

actually there’s significant evidence in terms of Neolithic burials that disabled people who would not have been able to hunt for themselves (the archaeological evidence mostly shows mobility disabilities because it’s visible in the bone record) were well fed and cared for by their communities

so the “people like you would have been left to die” argument isn’t just cruel and violently ableist, it’s extremely historically inaccurate and based off of projecting modern prejudice on prehistoric cultures

[alliluyevas]

sources because I’m on my laptop now!

note: in the neolithic era, a person in their 40s or 50s would be considered elderly

12,000-year-old burial of a woman about 45 with mobility disabilities both congenital and acquired

burial of a 40-50 year old Neanderthal man who had survived to old age with a deformed right arm and a long-healed head injury that would have made him blind in one eye

neolithic burial of a man in his 50s who lost the use of his left arm in adolescence

neolithic burial of a man in his 40s with evidence of a significant mobility disability caused by an injured hip and leg, some time in adulthood but long before his death

neolithic Asian burial of a man in his 20s with a congenital disorder which would have made him a quadriplegic around age 14. He survived for 10-15 years after that.

5th century burial of child with Down Syndrome

[stupiduglyfatcunt]

Our society continually propagates the myth that our ancestors’ lives were miserable, but the truth is human beings figured out how to live cooperatively and humanely a long time ago. Really the agricultural revolution fucked everything up.

[micdotcom]

1,225%

That’s how much the price of college in America has increased over the past 4 decades. 

That is not a typo. 

(via fortheloveofgop)

[yahoonews]

No Más Bebés: New PBS Documentary Reveals Population Control Of “Poor Who Cannot Adequately Feed Or Clothe The Children They Already Have”

Mothers like Consuelo Hermosillo were in labor when medical staff urged signed consent for a “life saving” treatment. Unbeknown to the mothers, doctors performed a tubal ligation, by clamping, cutting or burning of the fallopian tubes without disclosing the exact procedure.

A small group of Mexican immigrant women sued county doctors, the state and the U.S. government after they were sterilized while giving birth at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

[wocinsolidarity]

Horrible

[lord-bless-this-mess]

If hitting bottom helped people, there would be no addicts at all in the Downtown Eastside. ‘Bottom’ is very relative, so it’s a meaningless concept. For me as a doctor, rockbottom might be losing my medical license, but what is a bottom for a person who has been abused all her life and lives on the street? It’s meaningless and false. People don’t need more negative things to happen to them to give it up. They need more positive things to happen. In 12 years of work on the Downtown Eastside, I didn’t meet an [addicted] woman who was not sexually abused as a child. [Addicts] relationship to authority figures is one of fear and suspicion. How will it help if I punish them more? They need the very opposite. We end up punishing them for self-soothing. It makes no sense at all. Harm reduction is not an end in itself. Ideally, what it is is a first step towards a more thorough-going [recovery], but you have to begin with where people are at.

dr gabor mate

 http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/17/treating-addiction-a-top-doc-explains-why-kind-love-beats-tough-love/#ixzz247xWYiRT

(via skravl)

[teesadutta]

[littlejennsmall]

BOOM

[horriblewonder]

Yup. This is where I work. Plus giving their kids a better chance of having stability later in their lives. Thus reducing future costs, too.

[iridessence]

I think this is great. A lot of people probably feel like why should they have to pay their own rent then/it’s not fair to hardworking people and that’s such a selfish way to think, because lots of homeless people ARE hardworking people.

Plus to me it sounds a lot like “If it can’t be given to me even though I don’t absolutely need it then no one should be able to have it and I don’t want to contribute!” That’s pretty messed up.

I really think this country would go a lot farther if people understood and looked out for one another, especially since you could one day be in the same situation. A place really instilling values of group effort would empower encourage people to get back on their feet and pay it forward.

[fandomsandfeminism]

“My parents spanked me and I turned out ok!”

Well, actually you think that its ok to hit children.

So maybe you didn’t turn out as “ok” as you think you did. 

[loremerchant]

Care to explain how non-traumatic physical discipline is wrong?

[sunlesbian-replies]

why do u think beatin children is okay tf is wrong w u lmao

[loremerchant]

Where in my post did I condone beating children?

[sunlesbian-replies]

“why do u condemn people hurting their children and hitting them if theyre doin it “for discipline” uwu”

[loremerchant]

If you put something in quotes, it has to be something I actually typed or said.

[grilin18]

My parents spanked, not hit, me and I turned out fine. They always explained why and never did it in anger if they were still angry they made the other parent do it. They also used a ping pong paddle so my small five year old brain wouldn’t connect there hands with pain

[verto-atrum]

Lots of kids nowadays could use a good spank. Doesn’t help that majority of parents nowadays are morons and don’t know how to say no to a kid, and then wonder why their kid is a rebellious, mouthy brat. Discipline isn’t abuse. People who don’t know the difference or see no difference are idiots.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Children need discipline. They need boundries. They need to be taught right from wrong. They need to understand WHY rules exist. 

“Don’t do it or daddy will hit you” is not effective for long term discipline. The vast majority of research on the topic shows this. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics and The American Psychological Association oppose striking a child or adolescent for any reason.

35 developed nations have banned corporal punishment at home.

Children who were physically punished were more likely to endorse hitting as a means of resolving their conflicts with peers and siblings.

As 5-year-olds, the children who had been spanked were more likely than the nonspanked to be defiant, demand immediate satisfaction of their wants and needs, become frustrated easily, have temper tantrums and lash out physically against other people or animals.

2- to 4-year-olds who were spanked scored 5 points lower on the IQ test than those not spanked. For children ages 5 to 9, the spanked ones scored on average 2.8 points lower than their unspanked counterparts.

Participants who experienced physical punishment were 59 percent more likely to have alcohol dependence, 41 percent more like to have depression and 24 percent more likely to have panic disorder, compared with those who received no physical punishments.

[bluebelle88]

Okay I was hit. Hard, for discipline. Mostly around the head. I do believe in on the hand with the hard, or on the butt. Kids need something as a reminder that behavior is unacceptable. But it needs to be a last resort. Right now I see kids out of control, running the house because the parents have nothing they can do that society believes is acceptable.

[literarywarrior-blog]

Exactly…like if what a kid does now could get them deservedly hit by someone else when they are older (i.e. Using extremely disrespectful language towards someone, taunting/bullying etc) then they should get spanked for that type of behavior when they are younger so they’d know the repercussions of their actions

[fandomsandfeminism]

Here is an overview of many studies- The American Psychological Association: The case against spanking.  Physical discipline is slowly declining as some studies reveal lasting harms for children.

CCN: Spanking the Grey Matter out of out Kids: Talks about several studies, this one in particular has a slightly broader view on hitting kids- “Exposing children to HCP (harsh corporal punishment) may have detrimental effects on trajectories of brain development,“ one 2009 study concluded.Harsh corporal punishment in the study was defined as at least one spanking a month for more than three years, frequently (Though not always)  with objects such as a belt or paddle.

Research on Spanking takes the broadest (and most common) definition for spanking, defining it as- “hitting a child on the bottom with an open hand” . He concluded that not only was it INEFFECTIVE, but it also was harmful to the MENTAL HEALTH of the child, and also increased the risk of delinquency in the future.

In a new study published in Pediatrics, researchers at Tulane University provide the strongest evidence yet that children’s short-term response to spanking may make them act out more in the long run. Of the nearly 2,500 youngsters in the study, those who were spanked more frequently at age 3 were much more likely to be aggressive by age 5.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not endorse spanking under any circumstance. It’s a form of punishment that becomes less effective with repeated use, according to the AAP; it also makes discipline more difficult as the child outgrows it.

Spanking is NOT EFFECTIVE. It is HARMFUL. If you want to teach your children right from wrong, HITTING THEM is not the way to do that.  We have studies on this.

Yes, if your child does something that warrants discipline (bullying, using inappropriate or offensive language, breaking an important rule) then discipline the. But not all discipline has to involve physically striking a child. 

[micdotcom]

Finally, some empirical proof that the “pink tax” exists.

[spiritualsun]

this MAKES ME SO MAD

[professorbubo]

I am all for calling out the fact that the “pink tax” does exist and that it is a moronic male creation. But lying to drive the point does nothing more than alienate others and leads them to think that it is an unworthy cause to take up.

The Polo example used also falls into this category but a search of the site still has the pink tax running rampant.

And the hygiene products do not even need to be touched because there is no denying that it exists for them.

TL/DR: Don’t lie to exaggerate something that already exists, it just de-legitimatizes the issue…

(Link) (Polo 1)

(Polo 2)

[micdotcom]

All of these images were accurate and true as of the time of the release of this government report. NYC’s Department of Consumer Affairs analyzed 794 products in 24 different stores across five industries and found the “pink tax” to be present 42% of the time. It appears Target and Children’s Place (the Radio Flyer and polo examples) have updated their prices since the report was released. Read the full report.

[upworthy]

“I don’t want my son to look at me like I’m something less because I have to work for $7.25 and I bust my butt and I take pride in what I do” says Derrell Odom, KFC employee.

It’s a struggle for those making minimum wage, and they are fighting for a better life. (Via Fight for $15)

[marxistbarbie-deactivated202109]

ERASE the idea that America saved lives by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan from your minds. ERASE the idea that it was anything more than a political move to scare Russia and also to satiate US curiosity as to the true ability of nuclear weapons. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military bases. They were heavily populated civilian cities chosen precisely bc the U.S. wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go. Japan was on the verge of surrendering, the U.S. literally wanted to test out their nuclear weapons on people that they deemed disposable. That is it. If those bombs were dropped by any nation other than the US veryone involved would have been tried as war criminals.

[battlships]

Also erase the idea that America was the hero of WWII and got into the war because they wanted so save people. They couldn’t have cared less about the victims of the Holocaust, proven by the fact that they turned away so many shiploads of refugees that went on to die at the hands of Nazis.

[wommy-mami]

“the us wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go” oh really? Source your bullshit, asshole

[marxistbarbie-deactivated202109]

i left out sources bc i figured most tumblr users know how to use google but ok 

- Report produced by the U.S Strategic Bombing Group (employed by Truman) to survey the air attacks on Japan concluded that: 

“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” - page 52-56 

- Dwight Eisenhower future president and then Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces also said:

“I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to [the then Secretary of War] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” - page 380

- Admiral William Leahy, one of the highest ranking officials in the US army during WW2 wrote of the usage of the bombs:

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. […] My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.” - page 441

- General Douglas McArthur, another high ranking US official in the war:

“[When asked about his opinion on bombing Japan] He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” - page 70-71

- On September 9, 1945 Admiral William F. Halsey commander of the Third Fleet publicly quoted as saying:

“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment… . It was a mistake to ever drop it… . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it… . It killed a lot of Japs.” - online source

- The US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, speaking to President Truman:

“I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength.” - diary of Henry Stimson which can be found online here 

- Even those deploying the bombs questioned the decision to drop them on civilian cities:

“I thought that if we were going to drop the atomic bomb, drop it on the outskirts–say in Tokyo Bay–so that the effects would not be as devastating to the city and the people. I made this suggestion over the phone between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and I was told to go ahead with our targets.” - online source

- Lewis Strauss Assistant to the Navy Secretary James Forrestal on the locations of the bombings:

“I remember suggesting […] a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… I anticipated that a bomb detonated at a suitable height above such a forest… would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. […] Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation.” - page 145

So to recap: 

A lot of American generals were against using the bomb as they felt it served an empty purpose.

Those who agreed with its usage completely disagreed with dropping them on cities.

Truman went ahead and had them detonated in two highly populated civilian cities anyway. Two cities that had remained mostly untouched by regular bombings throughout the war precisely bc of their lack of value to the Japanese war effort.  

Draw your own conclusions. 

[riotrite-deactivated20171226]

Be careful when you ask for sources; someone might give them to you.

[mostly-vixx]

kim wonshik, a.k.a. bottom of the vixx food chain

[eearth-deactivated20180601]

Mainly black prisoners are being forced to pick cotton in modern day slavery

Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as ‘Angola Prison’, to this day compels prisoners to plant and pick cotton by hand, for as little as 4 cents an hour. Eighty percent of its prisoners are African-American.

Long rows of men, mostly African-American, till the fields under the hot Louisiana sun while armed guards, mostly white, ride up and down the rows on horseback, keeping watch.

It is the largest maximum security prison in America, bigger than Manhattan, sprawling over 18,000 acres of farmland dotted with barbed-wire enclosures, gun towers and concrete dormitories.

A History of Slavery

The land on which the prison sits is a composite of several slave plantations -it is called Angola, after the homeland of the slaves who first worked its soil - bought up in the decades following the Civil War. From when it was converted from plantations, prisoners have worked the land in much the same way as slaves did, under conditions so brutal, prisoners resorting to cutting their own Achilles’s tendons in protest in the 50′s.

After the plantation was converted to a prison, former plantation overseers and their descendants kept their general roles, becoming prison officials and guards. This white overseer community, is located on the farm’s grounds, both close to the prisoners and completely separate from them. In addition to their prison labour, Angola’s inmates do free work for these residents, from cutting their grass to trimming their hair to cleaning up Prison View Golf Course, the only course in the country where players can watch prisoners labouring as they golf.

Harsh Conditions

Angola prisoners technically work eight-hour days. However, since extra work can be mandated as a punishment for “bad behaviour", it’s common for Angola prisoners to work 65 hours a week after disciplinary reports have been filed, with guards often writing out reports well in advance, fabricating incident citations, then filling in prisoners’ names, sometimes at random.

“Guards talked to prisoners like slaves,” says former prisoner Robert King who spent 29 years at Angola, until he was released in 2001 after proving his innocence. “Prisoners worked out in the field, sometimes 17 hours straight, rain or shine.”

4 Cents per Hour for Backbreaking Work

Wages for agricultural and industrial prison labour are still almost non-existent compared with the federal minimum wage. Angola prisoners are paid anywhere from four to twenty cents per hour, with agricultural labourers falling on the lowest end of the pay scale.

On top of that, prisoner’s keep only half the money they make. The other half is placed in an account for prisoners to use to “set themselves up” after they’re released. However, due to some of the harshest sentencing practices in the country, 97% of Angola prisoners will never be released and so most will never get the other half.

A Common Occurrence

Angola is not alone. Sixteen percent of Louisiana prisoners are compelled to perform farm labour. Because of harsh mandatory minimum sentences, in Louisiana, writing bad checks can earn you up to 10 years in jail, a two-time car burglar can get 24 years without parole, a trio of drug convictions will get someone a life sentence, all of which time prisoners can be forced to work in conditions that mirror those supposedly outlawed 150 years ago.

Despite this system of modern slavery, Angola’s labour system does not break the law. In fact, it is explicitly authorized by the Constitution. The 13th Amendment, which prohibits forced labour, contains a caveat. It reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

Prisoners can be forced to work for the government against their will, and this is true in every state

source / source / source / source

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

Burn. This. Fucking. Country. To. The. Ground.

[daggers-drawn]

As long as this system stands they will never let anyone go. What is abolished in the yesteryear will be renewed in the next under a new name.

[genderlich-deactivated20211204]

what the FUUUUUUUCK

[postmarxed-inactive-deactivated]

They do this at Cummins Unit here in Arkansas too

[oparnoshoshoi]

For 4¢ an hour? I just ran the numbers: If you worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, in a six year prison sentence (something like 22000 hours), you would walk out the door with….

$898.56

That’s bullshit. Prison work programs are fucking sick.

[micdotcom]

States with more gun laws see fewer gun related deaths. (via the National Journal)

[liberalsarecool]

Let’s keep this straight. #immigration

[sandandglass]

Via Vox:

In December 2012, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children, six adults, and himself. Since then, there have been at least 887 mass shootings, with shooters killing at least 1,148 people and wounding 3,184 more.

Vox gun violence info.

Vox gun violence charts.

[yyynottonyyy]

damn, someone’s gotta stop these damn guns from waking up one day and deciding to kill all those people!

[sandandglass]

Did you seriously just make a “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument? On a post that basically shows how more guns = more deaths, no less. Are you completely oblivious to the fact that a higher proportion of guns in any locality increases the likelihood of gun-related incidents happening? It’s basic logic.

[fiercetransgirls]

[socimages]

Millennials are no less racist than Generation X and hardly less racist than Boomers.

By Lisa Wade, PhD

One of the important conversations that has began in the wake of Dylann Roof’s racist murder in South Carolina has to do with racism among members of the Millennial generation. We’ve placed a lot of faith in this generation to pull us out of our racist path, but Roof’s actions may help remind us that racism will not go away simply by the passing of time.

In fact, data from the General Social Survey — one of the most trusted social science data sets — suggests that Millennials are failing to make dramatic strides toward a non-racist utopia. Scott Clement, at the Washington Post, shows us the data. Attitudes among white millennials (in green below) are statistically identical to whites in Generation X (yellow) and hardly different from Baby Boomers on most measures (orange). Whites are about as likely as Generation X:

to think that blacks are lazier or less hardworking than whites (above)

to think that blacks have less motivation than whites to do well

to oppose living in a neighborhood that is 50% or more black

to object if a relative marries a black person

And they’re slightly more likely than white members of Generation X to think that blacks are less intelligent than whites. So much for a Millennial rescue from racism.

All in all, white millennial attitudes are much more similar to those of older whites than they are to those of their peers of color.

At PBS, Mychal Denzel Smith argues that we are reaping the colorblindness lessons that we’ve sowed. Millennials today may think of themselves as “post-racial,” but they’ve learned none of the skills that would allow them to get there. Smith writes:

Millennials are fluent in colorblindness and diversity, while remaining illiterate in the language of anti-racism.

They know how to claim that they’re not racist, but they don’t know how to recognize when they are and they’re clueless as to how to actually change our society for the better.

So, thanks to the colorblindness discourse, white Millennials are quick to see racism as race-neutral. In one study, for example, 58% of white millennials said they thought that “reverse racism” was as big a problem as racism.

Smith summarizes the problem:

For Millennials, racism is a relic of the past, but what vestiges may still exist are only obstacles if the people affected decide they are. Everyone is equal, they’ve been taught, and therefore everyone has equal opportunity for success. This is the deficiency found in the language of diversity. … Armed with this impotent analysis, Millennials perpetuate false equivalencies, such as affirmative action as a form of discrimination on par with with Jim Crow segregation. And they can do so while not believing themselves racist or supportive of racism.

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

[sorayachemaly]

Women scientists made up 25% of the Pluto fly-by New Horizon team. Make sure you share this, because erasing women’s achievements in science and history is a tradition. Happens every day.

. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150712