the bird is silent

Decolonize everything. Collective liberation.

[thebirdissilent]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article312539679.html

“-like” is doing some very heavy lifting here. 🤣

[thebirdissilent]

This started as something else entirely... Also, it truly is ramblings, so be warned if you're expecting more than half-baked ideas. Something I think about quite often when I hear people lament the constant “read theory” refrain from anarchists and communists:

“No one, unless intensely interested in progressive ideas, will bother with serious books.” —Emma Goldman

If you're not reading or consuming — learning — about a topic somehow, it might be that you're just not interested enough in/passionate enough about that topic to motivate you to explore it. But it also might be that there are so many reasons why engaging with theory eludes you.

Maybe you're a stay-at-home parent whose days are taken up with keeping one or more small humans alive and a household in some semblance of order. Maybe you're working three jobs and simply don't have time for anything else. Maybe you have a chronic illness or disability that makes it difficult to maintain focus.

To those who are simply struggling to exist, care for those they're responsible to/for, and make it through the day, hearing "just read a book" can be demoralizing and frustrating — especially when you finally have a moment to spare and can actually seek out knowledge and community.

It doesn't help matters that so many theorists are academics who write as though it's their job to gatekeep the knowledge of the world.

Honestly, I don't know what I want to say here. I wish I could tell you that reading and engaging with theory is fun and easy. It's not. It can be, and it occasionally has been for me. More often than not, though, it's just something I know I need... like exercise, water, and food. I need to engage with theory because I need to know the history around those things that inform my values and dictate how I move in the world.

But, while reading/consuming theory is important and valuable, it isn't everything. There is also praxis (i.e., putting theory into practice).

There are many who struggle to move between the two. People who can cite theory from Goldman, Kropotkin, Marx, or even Benally, Ervin, and on and on, but who don't understand the needs within their own community.

So... isn't praxis more important? Wouldn't it be more important to actually impact your community in a positive way? At the end of the day, who in your mutual aid group really cares if you understand Marx's theory around capitalist relations of production? Probably nobody. Probably. (There's always that one guy, right?)

But, who in your mutual aid group cares about keeping the community safe? Probably everybody.

And that's why theory is important, I guess.

I think so many people place value on the knowing, holding theory up as a guide to building the future. And, it is, I suppose, though not the way most people expect.

For me, theory is a guide to building the future only insofar as it helps us to understand the past. Theory shows us what has been conceptualized and how people have attempted to implement those concepts so we can see how they've succeeded or fallen short (and what does it tell us that those failings become apparent through our predecessors' treatment and consideration of disabled, Black/brown/indigenous, trans, and femme folks?). Theory is a draft, hinting at what the final book might hold. We can engage with theory to develop new and better ways to build (intersectional) community, inspire others to join our cause, and keep our communities safer along the way.

Will we be the ones to write the final draft? Probably not. But we can make sure our draft is better than those before it.

(Ending with positivity? Who the hell am I?)

[queercodedangel]

The idea that there are "too many people" and the belief that we need to "work harder and be more productive" in order to keep society functioning are probably two of the most harmful neoliberal myths.

[queerpunktomatoes]

Hi, quick clarification for baby leftists.

Privilege is when you lack barriers another person faces due to your identity (or perceived identity!) and social position, and it's often unnoticeable that you're experiencing it until someone points it out.

An example: I have privilege over my POC friends because I am perceived as white. My man friends have privilege over me because I am perceived as a woman. So my Puerto Rican man friend and I have privilege over each other in different ways, him because he doesn't face sexism and misogyny the way I do, and me because I don't face racism the way he does.

Relative Privilege is when one person with the same identity as another experiences discrimination or barriers to a lesser degree than the other.

An example: My friend and I are both Autistic, and we both experience discrimination due to that. Our autism presents differently, and (generally speaking!), I am more disabled by it than he is. Thus, he holds relative privilege over me. He is still discriminated against more than an allistic person is, but he is discriminated against for his autism less than I am for mine. This is relative privilege. This can also be applied more broadly, for example, I hold relative privilege over many disabled people who are not Autistic but are also otherwise disabled, because they experience more barriers than I do.

Also please note that privilege, because it's given or denied from larger social structures, is often more about how people perceive your identities than your actual identities! For example, I am not a woman, but I am perceived as a woman, and thus experience discrimination based on that.

Experiencing privilege is not a morally bad thing, and experiencing discrimination is not a morally high thing. It's easy to fall into the identity olympics, but it's not helpful. Where you have privilege, use it to lift the voices of those who don't. You are essential. Where you don't have privilege, learn your history, find your community, and embrace yourself. You are essential.

[missbadaboom]

[thebirdissilent]

Does “For You” on tumblr mean “we don’t actually know what a leftist is, but we’ve heard it means ‘liberal,’ so here’s a bunch of things you don’t agree with—enjoy!”?

[thebirdissilent]

From Capitalism & Disability, edited by Keith Rosenthal

Political economy is a term used for nearly three hundred years to express the interrelationship between the political and the economic affairs of the state. In terms of economics, liberals tend to believe that the current system is basically just, and that injustices and unemployment, low pay, inequality and poverty that occur within that system are mere unintended consequences of an otherwise beneficent economy. They are reformists who believe that gross inequalities can be leveled through legislation and other measures aimed at correcting “market failures.”

…

In contrast, left political economy looks to the laws rooted in the ongoing reproduction and expansion of this system of material accumulation as the source of the ills. Radical economists believe that the economic system itself is the problem: the system of profit does not create hardship as the unfortunate mishap of an otherwise just social order; rather, the pain experienced by people under such a system is very much integral to that system, and is required by it in order to function. People, including many disabled people, are excluded from work in such a system, and thus poor and even destitute, not because the system is breaking down, but because it is working exactly as intended.

—

The notion of the US as a meritocracy where individual failings are deemed the result of personal shortcomings is a seductive ideological posture. The appeal to rugged individualism—that we can be anything we want if we persevere—is an American tradition and perhaps a comforting notion, but barriers to advancement and achievement are often unrelated to individual effort, ability, or motivation. Disability civil rights laws (or any civil rights) do not subject that assumption to a challenge. Civil rights, for instance, are based on the premise that the individual citizen is an equal actor in the judicial process with the legal power to redress injustice through court challenges to discrimination; but what if the individual, due to her class position, lacks the money to hire an attorney, or has not the education or circumstance to secure those rights? Gender and race are also known determinants of lack of access to the courts. Furthermore, rights depend upon court interpretation. What if the political climate of the courts is such that her rights are likely to be thwarted by judges acting in opposition to the ideological premise of those rights? What if rights are in direct class conflict; if for instance, the business class has amassed such political power that the civil right has essentially become moot through defeat after defeat in the courts and few attorneys will risk taking such cases because they have little prospect of winning (and getting paid)?

In these instances, individual action and individual “right” is blocked and annulled by class and politics outside the control of the individual.

[thebirdissilent]

From Capitalism & Disability, edited by Keith Rosenthal

After several centuries of capitalism, our society still shows no signs of allowing sustained full employment. If history provides any guide, it is safe to assume that the decision-making class will never allow it. In the 1940s the US experienced the lowest unemployment rate in its history (one percent); directly on its heels came McCarthyism, an organized attack on socialist ideals of equitable distribution. In the 1970s, drops in wages and the standard of living occurred at the same time as a decline in the power of labor unions. Economist Michal Kalecki’s observation that labor must be kept weak to preserve profits and the class dictatorship of capital seems undeniable. Government enactment of full employment under capitalism can only result in an even greater crushing of labor so as to reinstate “stability” and reassert control over the economic lives of workers.

[thebirdissilent]

[theconcealedweapon]

What about when the police murder people in broad daylight and get away with it? That happens countless times. If the police can be investigated by their own buddies, then Luigi Mangione should be investigated by his own buddies too.

[theprofessional-amateur]

For no reason here is a library story

[theprofessional-amateur]

There will be millions of actions like this over the coming years. An important thing to remember is that for them to work (anywhere, not just libraries) is people absolutely can’t announce that this is what they are doing.

Not seeing constant acts of resistance doesn’t mean it isn’t happening all around you all the time. Some very effective methods require silence and secrecy.

Something to keep in mind.

[guerrillatech]

[thebirdissilent]

Capitalism, the US economic system: *makes it impossible for the vast majority of people to afford life*

Communism: *gets blamed for it*

Like, they’re so close and still missing it.

[thebirdissilent]

[simulacrvm]

as a disabled autistic how do yall find orgs or mutual aid/organizing that is legitimately leftist (don't expose themselves online for the feds, require masks, have actual strategies etc) 🥲

and if you have any recs of revolutionary books/essays/etc or blog/newsletter recommendations pls drop them in rbs as well!

[thebirdissilent]

Oh hey. If anyone knows, let me know too. The number of people calling themselves leftists while not masking (an easy way to protect yourself and your community from illness AND the fascist police) is disheartening.

[thebirdissilent]

If there’s a poorly-written thriller, you’d better believe:

Hands will be shaking

Fingers will be trembling

Hearts will be racing

Minds will be reeling

Stomachs will be churning

Spines will be chilling

There’s also probably going to be a hardened detective, a fetching femme psychologist, and a cheap plot twist that cheats the reader.

[theconcealedweapon]

[theconcealedweapon]