#systems of oppression

[aki-bara]

How ONE PIECE Took Over My Life -- Tom H. Jordan

[anti-zionist-jew]

Perfectly said. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are not the sole problem. They are a symptom of the problems

[marigoldman8]

I've been studying The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli as of late (know your enemy type shi) and it's got me thinking a lot of anarchic thoughts:

If politics demands cruelty to succeed, maybe the problem is not that people are too soft... it's that the system rewards sociopathy (and it should not).

We don't have to accept that rule by heartlessness and cruelty are the only ways to exist!

Machiavelli writes The Prince at a time where godliness and benevolence were virtuous traits in a leader. He writes it like an instruction manual for any wanna-be successful politician. Essentially, he says be feared, not loved; rule with cruelty because kindess is easily forgotten. "A man will sooner forget the death of his father than the loss of his inheritence" is a good way to set the vibe.

In my opinion, if morality and politics are incompatible, that says more about politics than it does morality. And every single leader today has to be Machiavellian to be successful. You have to cheat and feign and backstab constantly to get to power.

When power is built on cruelty, it's going to favour those socialised to wield it.

Now, while this is already obviously harmful on its own, it's also so incredibly exclusive. Machiavelli (to some extent) almost touches on this in The Prince but in a very sexist way... because it is. Women and men are not socialised the same and men, due to socialisation, are better at politics (and who set that system up???). The way women are socialised puts us at a disadvantage in political spaces.

Some examples!:

🔆 In the UK Parliament, men are much likely to get their points heard because they are more willing to interrupt in an obstructive manner. This is an illegal action but, being men and often being white and gerontocratic, they do not care. Women are less likely to be heard or valued because they do not interrupt obstructively. (Shaw, S. 2002)

🔆 Another UK example, Margaret Thatcher (😬) had voice training in order to sound more like a man and used to wear shoulder pads in order to look like a man.

🔆 In the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor had to make her idiolect more like a man in order to be valued more. (Jacobi, T. Schweers, D. 2017)

Women are unacceptable in politics. That should not be accepted. And if it continues to be, politics should not be accepted.

While I haven't read any studies specifically referencing disabled people, queer people, or people of colour in Western politics (likely because there are too few examples of this), if you've ever understood any intersectional theory, you'll understand that this applies to anyone who isn't a white man.

Our political system isn't broken because it's cruel, it's corrupt because it punishes kindness, compassion, and creativity.

I don't believe that this is human nature. We are collaborative creatures inherently. Perchance, capitalism has eroded that but through mutual aid, community care, and solidarity I truly do believe that we can form a society where a system like the one we're in doesn't need to exist. We already know how to exist like that in little ways. We do it every time we share, protect, or love someone without expecting power in return. Anarchism is in finding time to take your peace outside of the grind and talking with people you love, finding joy in nature, and creating anything at all that isn't inherently 'profitable' or 'productive'. We can do this on a larger scale, too!!

If power demands cruelty, then maybe true power is what happens when we refuse to be cruel.

That is why I'm an anarchist.

🌼

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[artemisdilauro]

What if the US is currently fighting to get back the equivalent of the old honmoon and that’s part of our problem…

I mean seriously, our system has oppression built into it. It’s better than this current alternative, but why should we have to settle.

Maybe we just gotta be Rumi about it and let all of the things holding us back and hiding us in shame go, and rebuild a new better system that was made for everyone…

[theweightofdivinity]

Have you ever noticed how blood, innocence, and power keep showing up in the same stories?

I’m not talking about the gothic fantasy of vampires. Not the Dracula kind of vampirism but something much older than that. Something that is quieter. Something that feeds.

Something like psychological vampirism.

Across ancient civilizations long before modern empires there were stories of a parasitic force that couldn’t create life of its own, only attach itself to it. A presence spoken of in myth, in early religions, even in Babylonian and pre-Babylonian cosmologies.

Systems like this don’t survive by creating anything of their own. They survive by feeding on fear, on control, on attention, on emotional charge, on innocence.

On a kind of vitality they don’t seem to possess themselves. That’s why this imagery never truly disappears. It keeps resurfacing in myth, religion, and art as a pattern. A pattern of energy extraction. A pattern of perception being shaped, and now, once again, it’s playing out in real life.

[queercodingquirk]

I have never once seen a report of a missing or murdered indigenous woman on the news, and I strongly encourage anyone who doesn't think this fact is insane to look at the statistics.

[iiinkos]

when unpacking how people’s roles in society affect one another, you can’t just “oh it’s a few bad apples and i’m not part of that that” out of it. you are an active player in this. while it has been determined by others when you were born, it doesn’t mean you weren’t playing. to get to the root of it all is to acknowledge that this is real, this is happening, and that you are a part of it. you don’t have to approve of it, just don’t turn a blind eye to the fact that you’re in this mess too.