@seeminglyrob - Tumblr Blog

Tell me a story, Pew. What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There's no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending. ― Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

"The mystifying ideological claim that looting is violent and non-political is one that has been carefully produced by the ruling class because it is precisely the violent maintenance of property which is both the basis and end of their power."

"The point, rather, is that for most of America’s history, one of the most righteous anti-white supremacist tactics available was looting. The specter of slaves freeing themselves could be seen as American history’s first image of black looters."

"In fact, anti-black racism remains the foundational organizing principle of this country. That is because this country is built on the right to property, and there is no property, no wealth in the USA without the exploitation, appropriation, murder, and enslavement of black people."

"Though there are more forms of violence than just literal physical blows to a human body, I don’t believe a conception of “violence” which encompasses both throwing trash in the street and the murder of Michael Brown is remotely helpful."

"The media’s own warped procedure instructs that riots and looting are more effective at attracting attention to a cause."

"However, in trying to correct this media image—in making a strong division between Good Protesters and Bad Rioters, or between ethical non-violence practitioners and supposedly violent looters—the narrative of the criminalization of black youth is reproduced. This time it delineates certain kinds of black youth—those who loot versus those who protest."

"it. To see themselves through the I.T. revolution, companies hired chief information officers. Perhaps the coronavirus pandemic will make chief workflow officer an equally important role."

"The author Jorge Luis Borges imagined a map exactly the same size as the territory it represented. “In time,” Borges wrote, “the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it.” We are now building such a 1:1 map of almost unimaginable scope, and this world will become the next great digital platform."

"New technologies bestow new superpowers. We gained super speed with jet planes, super healing powers with antibiotics, super hearing with the radio. The mirrorworld promises super vision."

"The irony is that essentially Marxist insights into culture—into the operations of cultural capital and coded meaning—have been best understood and deployed by the right."

"Charles Rossotti, a Republican businessman who served as the commissioner of the I.R.S. from 1997 to 2002, has estimated that sophisticated tax ploys and shelters cause ordinary citizens to pay an extra fifteen per cent in taxes each year. Brooke Harrington, an economic sociologist at Dartmouth, told me, “Some of that shortfall just never gets made up. Those are roads that don’t get improved, public transport that doesn’t get built, schools that don’t get fixed.”"

"In the early years of this century, the economic divisions that would come to define America in the age of Trump became evident on the lush back roads of Greenwich, in a sign so subtle that it was easy to miss. Many of the new estates going up were no longer surrounded by the simple stone walls, stacked to the height of a farmer’s hip, that crossed the New England landscape. Instead, the builders introduced a more imposing barrier: tall, stately walls of chiselled stone, mortared in place."

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