[notalittleatall]

More selfies bc nothing can stop me. I’m better than all of you

[captain-price-returns]

Arrest everyone involved.

[captain-price-returns]

Money saved: maybe a couple million dollars.

People killed: around three quarters of a million.

[higglety]

From what I understand, they didn't even save any money (not that what they did would be any less heinous and morally bankrupt if they had, mind you). My understanding is that their ignorant, short-sighted, and uninformed cuts actually COST money, immediately, in the short-term aftermath, and in the long run. It's going to take a long time to undo the structural damage that those horrible people caused, and the resulting death toll is utterly monstrous.

so really it's

money saved: not a goddamn cent

money lost: debatable but I've read estimates somewhere in the neighborhood of $135 billion

People killed: approximately the equivalent of the entire population of Denver Colorado

[bambamramfan]

modernism and poly

Have I ever mentioned that it's polyamory that is the gray, bureaucratic paste of romance in the future? It's a baseline assumption for me, but I may not have described it.

We've all read James Scott at this point, or are aware of Seeing Like a State, and the ubiquitious theme that forward progress smooths out injustices and deprivations of the past, but structures a world in a way that is less impassioned, and harder to put in words or numbers, but is much more conveniently legible for others. Think about finance moving from deals on the golf courses and steak restaurants, to just spreadsheets and quants from MIT.

And this is not an unmitigated good. Almost always the modernist progress is better in many ways, in all the ways you can measure, but something IS lost. Talk about NYC 30 or 40 years ago compared to now.

Anyway.

Because of the current cultural groups, monogamy comes across as "the normal, boring thing to do, done by conformists" and polyamory comes across as the "young, exciting, make-poor-decisions-by-the-seat-of-your-hormones option." But what matters is actually the other way around.

Monogamous marriage is the idealistic belief that one person can be your everything, and when you meet them in your twenties you're ready to be attached to them for the rest of your life. (And earlier on, that it's only possible between one man and one woman.) These things, practically speaking, are foolish absolutes that fence our lives in.

It is much more *reasonable* that you have multiple partners, each one of which satisfies different needs, and none of you are stuck if your feelings change, and that anyone is a possible romantic option, not just one gender or culture. It's the romance that would be designed by any good city planner.

Monogamy, in comparison, sounds more like an essentially fantasy story. Cue Zizek on monogamy, and any polycule on how "sensible" their lifestyle is. Monogamy is just the thing that feels more "magical" in the good and bad connotations of the word.

Not that individuals can't make their own magic, just the "one partner, other gender, rest of your life" is the one that brings Culturally Supported Magic without you having to look for it.

Magical: you cheated on me and now I will kms

Non-magical: you slept with her but I have a boyfriend too so why should I mind.

This is the same divide as "I hunted down this animal in the forest and ripped blood from its veins with my own bare hands" vs "we plant the wheat here once a year and harvest it once a year and we don't have to move constantly."

It's the arrow of modernism, and on paper it's obvious which one is more rational. And going forward I think that is where more of the divide will come from, rather than social conformism vs not.

[shencomix]

I really appreciate you as a Cis person for being such a huge trans ally.

[goatgirlballs]

well if its for fucked up and horny reasons, then i guess its okay...

[queeranarchism]

#my wife is on the SOR for being gay #no joke #she hit on a girl in a straight bar once #in 1997 #and while the girl was into it #the off duty cop sitting nearby was not #and so he arrested her for ‘soliciting homosexual activity’ #which in our state was still a felony #in 1997 (and would remain so until Lawrence v Texas in 2003) #and since ‘soliciting homosexual activity’ was a felony and a sex crime #she got put on The List #she is still on there to this day #because it costs MONEY to ask a judge to take you off #and she has tried four times#since 2003 #to get taken off the SOR #but every time the judge has said something like ‘no you pled guilty to the crime i can’t possibly take you off the sex offender registry’ #with no acknowledgement of what the actual crime was #(the crime of being a butch lesbian hitting on a cute girl who was into it) #(in 1997)

Reposting these tags with consent from the person that wrote them. The post about the Sex Offenders Registry is locked, but these tags are too important to go unnoticed.

Younger queer people need to realize that the SOR being used against queer people simply for being queer isn’t some ancient history thing. It still impacts queer people today. And it can quite easily be used that way again.

[ashelyskies-deactivated20241121]

Listen!

When you hear people throwing around the talking point of “well there’s a high rate of sex offenders in the trans/queer community”, this has to do with why.

Being on the sex offender registry isn’t inherently equivalent to whatever horrific sex crime you’re meant to think of when it’s mentioned. It evokes imagery of pedophilia and rape, but there is a lot that can get you put on it and not a lot you can do to be taken off of it.

Public crossdressing used to be able to get you put on the sex offender registry (and by used to I mean as recently as 2011).

Public urination (you know, the literal only option for someone who’s homeless and doesn’t have access to public bathrooms, a venn diagram where trans people are more likely to rest in the meeting zone) can get you put on the sex offender registry.

Sex work is pretty much an automatic way to end up on the sex offender registry if you’re caught. (This is especially weaponized against black trans women who do sex work)

“Deviant Sexual Intercourse” (aka literally any sexual activity aside from penis-in-vagina penetration) could get you on the sex offender registry as recently as the early 2000s. That effectively impacts the entire queer community in one way or another.

The sex offender registry is, first and foremost, useless. It tells you nothing about what someone did. It’s mentioned to quickly associate a person or a group of people with the worst possible crimes imaginable.

It has been used against us time after time and it will continue to be used for that.

[cluegrrl]

And this is where the push of purity discourse in fandom shows its fetid, fascist underbelly.

[gwydionmisha]

This is why they are making being trans in public a felony in some states.

[harperhug]

When you decide that people who commit a certain crime or category of crime should legally lose their humanity, you create incentive for more people to be charged with that crime.

[eepykeepy]

how nonbinary people look when you wont buy them chicken nugget

[apas-95]

[sraithpics]

David Cleary!

[aiteanngaelach-deactivated20241]

i'm in Ireland and the search for that bastards name is still blocked and hidden... the legnths the british go to defend and protect their instruments of colonialism and violence is beyond belief. no justice for the victims and yet every measure taken to protect David James Cleary and his fellow murderers.

[undeadentropy]

Never a better time for the Streisand Effect than when it's a government covering up acts of brutality and evil.

[stele3]

if you complain about the Chinese government covering up Tianamen Square, then complain about this, too.

[j-h-cubedman]

Fun Fact!

BONUS:

[deadgenerations]

I think we as atheists have probably swung too far towards tolerance and polite quiet. We should swing back towards publicly criticising the repression, hypocrisy, deception, untruths, bigotry, cruelty and nonsense of religions. even on Tumblr the Catholics have stopped feeling any sort of shame! the CATHOLICS!!!

[artbyblastweave]

BREAKING: Vatican announces successfully cultured Jesus Cells, announces partnership with Upside Foods "At long last we can quit the fucking. Pantomime with the crackers," Pope Francis added

[artbyblastweave]

GO ANTI-POPE GO!!!!

[artbyblastweave]

He's made it up to the popemobile! He's pounding on the glass with his photonegative hands! Francis is in a corner and he's feelin' the heat! We're finally lookin' at an incipient pope-anti-pope negation event, people!

[artbyblastweave]

And a last-second clutch polearm decapitation by a surviving member of the Pontifical Swiss Guard detachment brings this one to a disappointing close, folks. I won't lie, I really thought we had him there for a minute. But Next year! Next year for sure!

[knucklecurve]

filthy, filthy read

[our-lady-of-haymakers]

American 'leftist' writer covering socialist history: While many people associate socialist states with the totalitarian Soviet model which insisted on building massive walls around their political process for secrecy and control, claiming manipulatively that these walls were built for reasons of "security against Western capitalist subversion of our politics", not all socialist states have been so dictatorial or undemocratic. Consider this example of a socialist party in the Global South that arose after centuries of colonization and imperialism, yet chose to develop in a peaceful way with elections totally open to the benevolent influence of donors and private media, and budgets spent on welfare programs rather than the paranoid military expansion of the warmongering Soviets. This shows us that socialism need not be totalitarian or militant, but can be open, democratic and free :)

Readers in the West may now wonder why they have not heard of this wonderfully democratic socialist party, or why their country is today a state that struggles with immense corruption, wealth inequality, and a politics that caters more to Western markets than local development. Sadly, this is because the democratic and inclusive socialist party was overthrown after less than a decade in power due to a combination of rigged elections, military coups and color revolutions, all of which have been linked to activity by Western intelligence agencies to compromise their democratic process, build distrust and hatred against the socialist parties, and incentivize the upper classes (who had been 'democratically' allowed to participate in the political process) to sabotage the socialist movement. Tragically, this led to the butchering of all socialists and leftists in a massacre that claimed millions of lives, and the establishment of a right-wing government/dictatorship that ruled over the country for decades and turned it into a resource mine and military proxy for Western interests, growing fabulously rich in the process.

The lesson to be learned from these incidents is that the totalitarian Soviet model of government hurts not only its own citizens, but also all socialist states across the world, even the ones that are democratic, civilized and not at all savagely repressive of the upper classes. While the actions of Western intelligence can seem excessive and brutal, the presence of Stalinist regimes that call for military development, political secrecy and total opposition to all forms of 'Western interference' in defense of state socialism will necessarily lead the West to take drastic measures to prevent the rise of totalitarian regimes and Cold War anxieties, allying even with conservative groups and right-wing agents whose politics may go against the cherished ideals of Western democracy.

For socialism to thrive, it must always engage in productive dialogue with the West, keep its elections completely transparent and open to Western observation and influence, and refrain from the political extremism of Stalinism and Maoism against the imagined and manipulative threat of Western imperialist aggression. Though countless socialist states across the Global South have been crushed, we hope that the death of totalitarianism and state socialism in the Soviet Union will usher in a new era of thriving democracy in areas such as Africa, Latin America and the Middle East where the spectre of Stalinism once loomed large :)

[artbyblastweave]

Actually, they find that term judgmental and offensive, they self-identify as a That-Which-Gives-Life-Meaning Cult. And they're saying that they're gonna Give Meaning to the Life of one hostage every hour until we agree to stop producing antibiotics so that nature can take its intended course. Or until all the hostage's lives are super meaningful. Whichever comes first

[sackboy166]

holy shit oh my go what the fuck

it's real

[enbaluka-tokyo-drift]

[enbaluka-tokyo-drift]

To put it in dumber words,

[libertineangel]

Tags here making the crucial point that it's not that art is politically useless as a rule, but that individualist, spontaneous agitation is ineffective. Propaganda can be as useful for us as for them, but it needs to be produced for clear aims to suit the circumstances, spread and utilised effectively as part of a defined programme and strategy.

The conclusion here, as ever, is not to abandon political art as a concept but to get organised!