#Power Structure

[boof-chamber]

even though i had been using the internet for a long time before this, Leftbook was very confusing for me at first. i thought group admins were Big Time Communists. that they had pull and connections.

i had this friend who was in prison in 2020, and prisons were exploiting the pandemic to allow all kinds of horrifying shit. they were locked down pretty much 24/7 with no real security justification for it. they did that because their jobs were easier. so these guys had not been allowed to shower for weeks at a time, but they knew that the prison was required to let them shower at least every 3 days. they didn’t have any soap to wash their hands, and they were each given one mask that they had use all the time.

so a bunch of the guys had planned to protest to demand showers by refusing to step out for count. my friend was pretty hardened to this shit, he fully expected to get the shit kicked out of him and he was prepared for that. i hadn’t heard from him for about 2 weeks, then he called and dude was crying. he asked if i would file a grievance with the warden and ask his mom to do it too, because sometimes they listen to family.

he said that when he didn’t step out for count, they screamed and threatened him and then they busted in to extract him, but they did not beat the shit out of him. they threw him in the quarantine block. he did not have COVID. and they didn’t let him out for 2 weeks.

when i submitted the grievance, i found out that it was not at all likely that these grievances would be taken seriously. so i started asking around in groups because i thought everyone else was deeply involved in orgs or whatever - i did not really know anything about orgs, but i thought everyone else was an expert except me. and people were offering advice on my posts but it seemed like they didn’t understand the part about the “official channels” leading no where. so i figured this called for a Big Time Communist to tell us what to do.

So i DM’d the admin of The Libs are Libbin Shit up Again

[larimar]

greenpeace_canada

Except we're not quitting... we're coming back even stronger ✨

[themosthatedbeingg]

[alianoralacanta]

A Guide To F1 For Rookies Part 2 - Power Structure (21/11/2007)

Context: This was part 2 of a 3-part series intended to help the many newcomers to F1 with aspects of F1 that might not be discussed by standard primers (I can't find part 1, and cannot recall what it was about). Part 3 will be provided later). One thing I found lacking in most primers was a description of how power works in F1. People coming to it from other sports and expecting the structure to work the same were invariably confused and disappointed. Concision has never been one of my strong points (as readers of my recent 6060-word reply to a 219-word question will attest), but I think this gives a fair description about the Bernie and FIA-centric power structure F1 had in 2007. Of course, since then Bernie has helped CVC sell F1 to Liberty (no doubt getting a fee for assisting that process). For the most part, substitute "Bernie" for "Liberty" and parts speaking to current behaviour are still accurate (obviously the historic Bernie bits should still be read as Bernie - for more information, read "Bernie's Game" by Terry Lovell). The FIA has seen a Frenchman (Jean Todt) in control for 11 years (2010-2021), followed by an Emiriti (Ben Sulayem) for the last 2 1/2 years and counting. It has 4 different bases now: - Paris (Place de la Concorde), France: the main office of the FIA, where most elements important to F1 occur. The President's office is unsurprisingly located here as well. - Geneva, Switzerland: Most of the FIA's support functions, as well as road safety campaigns and non-single-seater managers are based here. - London, UK: Mostly legal matters for non-EU series (aspects of F1 qualify). The head of single-seaters is also based here. - Valleiry, France: Homologation processes (not F1) and FIA archives (including some cool F1 stuff that can be partially viewed on request). There has also been a complete leak of the 1997 Concorde Agreement, and a new set of trilateral agreements replacing it (between the teams, Liberty and the FIA) which don't have such a catchy name. (In case you are wondering, "Concorde" was not chosen because it is the French word for agreement, but because the FIA's headquarters are in the square most recently used for Olympic skateboarding). The trilateral agreements are, as one might imagine, largely secret, although we do know that several teams now get historic payments rather than only Ferrari (with a system to enable recent champions to also get a set bonus for some years after actually winning a title). It appears this is not a complete version of Part 2. There was a heading "Part 1 - Introduction" I did not post here, but the version of this entry I have does not feature any writing below it.

Warning! Long post alert!

In order to understand the more complicated bits about Formula 1, it helps if you know that many commentators on it do not regard it as primarily a sport, or as double world champion Fernando Alonso put it after a bruising encounter with F1's power structure at Monza in 2006, "I don't consider F1 a sport anymore".

On the face of it, the power structure is simple. The sport is owned by a massive, faceless company (CVC - who cares what that is in long form?), but the rights to administer it are held by an equally large not-for-profit foundation (the FIA, or the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile). The FIA lives in the Place de la Concorde in Paris (apart from a few years back at the turn of the century when they moved to Geneva to fight the EU and to support tobacco in F1).

The nearest thing CVC has to a face is Bernie Ecclestone. Originally from Surrey, this seventy-something takes the commercial side of F1 very seriously. He masterminded the conversion of F1 from a relatively low-profit sport in the 1970s into the most expensive, most profitable sport in the world. He has sold F1 four times, pocketed the money each time and, as Ken Tyrrell (a successful team boss at the time Bernie started his money-chasing) said, he never actually owned F1 in the first place! The catch is that he is only in it for the money and Bernie pockets a huge amount of the profit.

There is no denying that Bernie has power, though - he's so far managed to bankrupt a huge German media company (Kirch) and a circuit organiser (the ex-organisers of the Belgian GP), fool three banks into paying him masses of money for non-voting ownership shares (Bayerische Landesbank, JP Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers) and get CVC to pay him a lot of money to remain in control. There is a really complex system of companies within CVC with ownership rights to F1, but all you need to know is:

Bernie has the power

Bernie gets the loot (indirectly)

Bernie does whatever he can to increase the flow of money to himself

In other words, he's your stereotypical money-grabbing chief executive. Except I don't think he holds that title in CVC. As the French say, "Why make it simple when you can make it complicated?"

Speaking of the French, you would think that a Frenchman would be at the head of a French organisation. But no. The FIA is constructed from the heads of all the national motoring organisations, plus several hundred politically-minded others. It is a London-born politically-minded other, Max Mosley, who is currently in charge of the FIA. He has been since he defeated Jean-Marie Balestere in the 1991 election. In case you're wondering, Mosley is a) the son of the leader of the British Fascist movement in the late 1930s and b) of pensionable age. The less kindly souls in the F1 universe have been known to suggest that this explains everything about how he works.

Every five years or less, the FIA elects a new President, and this is the role Max Mosley holds. There are a number of other important elements of the FIA, but the absolutely key one for F1 is a document called the Concorde Agreement. This is named for the place where it was signed (which was not aboard the famous plane, but at the FIA's headquarters) and it has detailed the rights and responsibilities of the teams, the FIA and Bernie since 1981 (after a long fight which is better discussed elsewhere).

This vitally important document is unfortunately a secret. Paul Stoddart (an ex-team boss) did threaten to reveal parts of it back in 2003, but the FIA soon shut him up. This is probably because there are things in the Concorde Agreement that the FIA would prefer us not to know. One of the things that has leaked out since is that Ferrari (the largest, oldest, most successful team that races in red and everyone's heard of) is paid money by all the other teams (F1 Racing, February 2005).

Things like this have raised doubts (to say the least) as to the even-handedness of the FIA. These doubts have been going on almost since the series started 57 years ago, so Ferrari are kind of used to the suspicion. However, the FIA is always very sensitive about such accusations - as would any other sports administrator if it was accused of being biased!

After the Concorde Agreement, Max Mosley is the most important thing in the FIA. If the Concorde Agreement runs out at the end of 2007 without being renewed, he will become the most important. He is the one tasked with standing up to Bernie Ecclestone's profiteering when it runs to excess, of co-ordinating the future direction of F1 and of ensuring fairness and transparency in the sport.

His main tool for doing these things is an array of regulation documents. The most important of these are the Sporting and Technical Regulations (the dividing line between these is unclear - for instance, many of the tyre rules are in the Sporting Regulations). Other regulations periodically get used to advance the will of the FIA.

These are all meant to be agreed with the teams, and in some cases other stakeholders such as Bernie and the tyre manufacturer(s). However, Max is prone to using his power to greatly influence the direction of the sport. The FIA is supposed to be a democracy, but it's no coincidence that no opposing candidate has stood for election since 1991.

In addition, his foot soldiers (known as stewards and scrutineers - the former judge race weekend behaviour, the latter judge technical compliance of cars) often add "clarifications" to the regulations in order to make the rules comply with the FIA's intentions. Teams and the FIA work together in such groups as the Technical Working Group to the same purpose. Whether these work is sometimes debatable.

His record, unlike Bernie's at making money, is somewhat patchy. During the early 1990s, Max Mosley was instrumental in bringing in safety measures that allowed F1 to get through the dark days of 1994, where two drivers (rookie Roland Ratzenberger and three-time world champion and great Ayrton Senna) were killed and eight others injured. There were also popular moves in other areas, such as banning traction control (an electronic means of helping a driver put power on the road).

After a good period of consolidation came a period of Ferrari/Michael Schumacher domination. This was when Michael Schumacher won five of his seven world championships - consecutively. During the third year this happened (2002), there was a perfect demonstration of why Steven Roy's assertion that "Bernie's bank balance is the single most important thing in the F1 universe" is valid in terms of the power structure.

Bernie looked at the TV figures for the first bit of 2002 and noticed that for the first time since 1994, they'd gone significantly down. Problem!

For Bernie, there are three main streams of income - TV contracts, the $365m a year that Allsport Management give him for trackside advertising and the periodic sales of F1 he arranges. At the time, he was looking for a buyer for F1 because this was the time when Kirch was going bankrupt paying for the F1 empire.

He was also trying to open a fourth major revenue channel (digital TV), which wasn't working because he charged customers too much money. The TV contract amounts were dependent on the value TV companies placed on F1 - the more viewers, the more they could charge for adverts and the more they paid Bernie. And believe me, Bernie is adept at chasing every last dollar. Fearing that his source of money (which Bernie uses as a indicator of his success, in much the same way as a team or driver may use the points scored in the championship).

He decided drastic action was needed, so he prodded Max Mosley (a good friend from the 1970s, when they were rival team owners) and the team owners (over whom he has massive influence) into discussing measures to increase the "show". Up until then, F1 had sometimes been described affectionately as a circus, but this was the first time the "show" had been considered more important than the sport itself.

These changes ( which you can read in full in this PDF), as well as the current points system, included banning traction control again (it got reintroduced in 2001 after the FIA said it couldn't police it - long story!) forcing cars into parc fermé, a one-lap qualifying system that was completely different from the 12-lap system traditionally used, and several other rule changes too tedious to go into here. Suffice to say that only the points system is still intact, though after five years of delays, the FIA will get to ban traction control in 2008 - but perhaps not for long.

The TV figures went up by the end of 2003. This should have surprised nobody - a season with eight different winners, some sublime races, some ridiculous ones, and a four-way title fight for much of the season will always be more exciting than a one-man exhibition run. It is also a likely consequence of a season with a one-man exhibition run, because the teams will learn from their mistakes and do better in order to restore their wounded pride. OK, Michael Schumacher still won the 2003 championship, but that wasn't the point…

Since then, Max has progressively become more combative and less in tune with what most other people seem to want. This despite two FIA surveys which 90,000 people completed. Bernie has gone quiet in the last two years, but I think he's just waiting for the next big money-spinning opportunity in F1.

What this demonstrates is:

Bernie really is the most important person in F1

Max accedes to Bernie in many matters

The team bosses get just enough power to think they can influence major things in F1

The media have a lot of indirect power in F1, because they boost Bernie's bank balance

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the drivers, sponsors and spectators have no meaningful power at all.

There is, incidentally, a good reason why the teams accept this state of affairs. They are extremely well-compensated for keeping their mouths shut.

Every year, Bernie gives the teams a share of the gross earnings of F1. This is believed to be 47% at the moment, but it is unclear because the Concorde Agreement, where this is written, is a secret document. This is distributed according to where the teams finish in the championship, with certain provisos (the main one being that a team must be in the championship for three years before getting any money - a measure brought in because teams used to go into F1 without thinking about how they'd finance such a move).

The team getting the most money is usually the one scoring the most points (this year, that would be Ferrari). The second-highest scoring team (BMW) would get a bit less (when I say a bit, that means a few million pounds…) and so on until you get to the tenth-highest scoring team (Spyker/Force India), which gets a few million out of the bottom of the barrel. The last one or two teams (McLaren, since there's only 11 teams right now) get nothing at all.

That's the theory. In practise, Super Aguri definitely won't get any money because it's too new (it only started in 2006, so cannot claim any money from Bernie until 2008), so that money goes to the 11th team. Which would be McLaren, but under the circumstances in which it lost all its points, the court decided that it would get money based on where it would have finished in the championship (2nd - it would have been 1st had it not lost points in Hungary for a rather strange pit-lane incident…) So everyone else gets bumped down a place in the financial pecking order, meaning Spyker gets the payment that Super Aguri lost rather than McLaren.

I will explain why the small teams are important and undervalued in a later piece.

[ekwolfwriter-blog]

2, 7, and 17 for the Fanfic Writers' ask please

Thanks for the Ask! Let see...

2) For this one, here are my top five: Alternative Universe - Cannon Divergence, Alternative Universe, Romance, Falling in Love, and Original Characters

As for the second half of the question, I would say so. I am a big fan of characters falling in love - especially characters that have good chemistry or have so much romantic potential. What can I say? I am a romantic at heart. But also find it fun to diverge from the a cannon lore as of late with alternative possibilities.

7) World building I am fond of? Surprisingly, I am a fan of power structuring and how to make it work and function. It is not something in my current works (yet) but I like the idea of how characters might start in a certain tier of power and have to work their way up to the powerful person they are.

That and reason I like cannon divergence with it is because a certain show broke my suspension of disbelief about how powerful a character was only to have it kinda become all over the place that I just wanted to find more structure. Miraculous

Maybe I can talk about some of the other fandom works I have done power restructure for - She-Ra Princesses of Power, Miraculous, Winx Fate series, and a few others of my own creation.

And 17) Specific AU I would like to read or write? Well, as much as I like the idea of going back in time and writing the wrong of the lead trope, it has been done to death by now. Both in the being the hero of the story or being the villainess and then becoming the hero. I think it would be cool to have a story where two souls go back in time and try to work together to take revenge and maybe get a happy ending in return.

Thanks again for the ask.

Send me an ask

[anongalu]

It's not about the action, it's about the power structure.

that’s such a funny mental image

[nando161mando]

The RTS message developed beyond being about a street party reclaiming the space from cars and into a wider analysis of capitalism and power structures.

https://freedomnews.org.uk/2025/05/11/reclaim-the-streets-a-retrospective/

[cmweller]

Challenge #04443-L059: Imitation of Power

Making a statement - what you choose to wear can say a Lot about how you think. -- Anon Guest

Clothing has had messages behind it since one person decided to do something a little different with their garments. Or, as it may be, their decorations. Who was the first to create style, and who was the first to begin fashion. All that is certain is that the young have been using it to annoy adults since before records became available.

It's entirely possible that the first message of clothing was, I'm in charge. Or at the very least, I have more than you. The mightier hunter wore a trophy from their most difficult kill, or the most dangerous animal. The spiritual advisor wore things that matched their eldritch responsibilities. And when Elves discovered control spells, there was a new way to say I'm in charge.

A band of gold around the head. A gem on a spire above the brow. A rather lot of runes on the inside and outside... and all the servants wearing bracelets or chokers linked to the world's first crowns. All the better to punish the disobedient. It didn't take long for the disobedient to figure it out.

[Check the source for the rest of the story]

[somerandomg33k]

Intro to Ableist language.

I find this to be a good introduction to Ableist language. And linked in the pinned message is a helpful list of alternative words to use instead of Ableist words.

[firstoccupier]

The Rise of Oligarchy: A Growing Threat to Democracy

In a compelling and timely farewell address, President Joe Biden sounded the alarm on the burgeoning dominance of a tech oligarchy that threatens the very fabric of American democracy. He articulated his deep concerns about the alarming concentration of power among a handful of technology giants, whose influence extends far beyond the digital realm and into critical societal domains. By…

[twelvebooksstuff]

As someone with a background in International Relations, many of my classes sought to promote critical discussion about exploitation, colonialism, slavery, oppression and more, and that is something I’m grateful for-to clarify 1. That is partially because i sought out human rights courses 2. Nonetheless a big credit to the university and staff 3. Unlikely to be as common in the US as it was only a couple of years ago (when I was studying) because of overt organized attempts to suppress this content, especially in educational institutions, by various levels of government

what do political science majors even learn? Because they don’t seem very educated on a broad scope of political theory from my experience.

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

so: masking: good, unequivocally. please mask and please educate others on why they should mask to make the world safer for immune compromised people to participate in.

however: masking is not my policy focus and it shouldn't be yours, either. masking is a very good mitigation against droplet-born illnesses and a slightly less effective (but still very good) mitigation against airborne illnesses, but its place in the pyramid of mitigation demands is pretty low, for several reasons:

it's an individual mitigation, not a systemic one. the best mitigations to make public life more accessible affect everyone without distributing the majority of the effort among individuals (who may not be able to comply, may not have access to education on how to comply, or may be actively malicious).

it's a post-hoc mitigation, or to put it another way, it's a band-aid over the underlying problem. even if it was possible to enforce, universal masking still wouldn't address the underlying problem that it is dangerous for sick people and immune compromised people to be in the same public locations to begin with. this is a solvable problem! we have created the societal conditions for this problem!

here are my policy focuses:

upgraded air filtration and ventilation systems for all public buildings. appropriate ventilation should be just as bog-standard as appropriately clean running water. an indoor venue without a ventilation system capable of performing 5 complete air changes per hour should be like encountering a public restroom without any sinks or hand sanitizer stations whatsoever.

enforced paid sick leave for all employees until 3-5 days without symptoms. the vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through industry sectors where employees come into work while experiencing symptoms. a taco bell worker should never be making food while experiencing strep throat symptoms, even without a strep diagnosis.

enforced virtual schooling options for sick students. the other vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through schools. the proximity of so many kids and teenagers together indoors (with little to no proper ventilation and high levels of physical activity) means that if even one person comes to school sick, hundreds will be infected in the following few days. those students will most likely infect their parents as well. allowing students to complete all readings and coursework through sites like blackboard or compass while sick will cut down massively on disease transmission.

accessible testing for everyone. not just for COVID; if there's a test for any contagious illness capable of being performed outside of lab conditions, there should be a regulated option for performing that test at home (similar to COVID rapid tests). if a test can only be performed under lab conditions, there should be a government-subsidized program to provide free of charge testing to anyone who needs it, through urgent cares and pharmacies.

the last thing to note is that these things stack; upgraded ventilation systems in all public buildings mean that students and employees get sick less often to begin with, making it less burdensome for students and employees to be absent due to sickness, and making it more likely that sick individuals will choose to stay home themselves (since it's not so costly for them).

masking is great! keep masking! please use masking as a rhetorical "this is what we can do as individuals to make public life safer while we're pushing for drastic policy changes," and don't get complacent in either direction--don't assume that masking is all you need to do or an acceptable forever-solution, and equally, don't fall prey to thinking that pushing for policy change "makes up" for not masking in public. it's not a game with scores and sides; masking is a material thing you can do to help the individual people you interact with one by one, and policy changes are what's going to make the entirety of public life safer for all immune compromised people.

[the-most-humble-blog]

<div style="white-space:pre-wrap">

🧠 FREE WRITING LESSON — THE MOST POWERFUL CHARACTER DEPTH TRICK YOU’LL EVER READ.

Let’s say your character sucks.

She’s flat. Predictable. “Strong” in all the wrong ways. Let’s call her Nicolle. Or Carol. Or whatever name Hollywood gave her.

She’s a superhero. She’s got powers. She’s got sarcasm. She takes no shit. She leads the squad. She’s admired by everyone — and loved by no one.

You’ve seen this character before. Now watch what happens when you give her one secret she doesn’t brag about.

Nicolle has two sons.

She’s raising them alone — to become men like her late father: A man who sacrificed everything to raise her after her mother disappeared, broke, or gave up.

The world sees Nicolle as the apex of visual empowerment. But the world doesn’t see:

The arguments with her boys’ father — about what being a real dad means.

The prayers whispered in the dark over a fevered forehead.

The way she ghosted the only man she maybe wanted, not because she’s flaky — but because she doesn’t know if wanting love makes her a bad mother.

The nights she tucks her boys in, then collapses into her bed, staring at the ceiling, heart full of ache, because she gave the world her strength but kept no one to hold hers.

They don’t see the days her sons cry after watching her get slammed through buildings on TV.

Held by the throat. Left for dead. Motionless for seconds too long. Until she rises — because she has to.

They don’t see the breakdowns. They don’t see her flinch.

They assume she doesn’t feel fear. But the truth?

She feels it every single time.

She’s not fearless. She’s never been. But fear is a luxury she doesn’t have.

That’s a luxury for men. She is a god. And she will make any threat scream that truth — as she crushes it beneath her bleeding hands.

Because when demons invade, tyrants rise, and monsters descend, She suits up.

Not for hashtags. Not for feminism. Not for attention.

She suits up because the idea of her sons growing up in a world she could’ve fought for and didn’t — is more terrifying than death itself.

And she will not let the universe teach her boys that their mother ever cowered.

🔺 THE TRIFECTA THAT MAKES ANY SUPERHERO NEXT-LEVEL:

Intimacy. Contradiction. Duty.

Intimacy gives them a soul — something they protect more than their own body.

Contradiction gives them depth — because perfection is forgettable, but conflict creates memory.

Duty gives them immortality — because we remember those who bled for more than applause.

Give a character that trifecta — and suddenly:

She’s not annoying. She’s haunting. She’s not fanfiction. She’s canon. She’s not shallow. She’s legend.

✍️ That’s how you fix a weak character. You don’t soften her. You give her something to fight that fists can’t touch.

And suddenly?

She’s not a girlboss. She’s the last myth your enemies ever tell themselves before they die.

</div>

[keferon]

THE NEW CHAPTER OF MISTAKES ON MISTAKES UNTIL IS OUT AND YOU ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS~~~~~~

Spoilers for ch 74 below >:)

Head in hands. And then they all happened to be self sacrificial idiots.

Infinitely delighted by the fact that Optimus automatically decided to catch whoever was falling and only look who that was afterwards. 100/10. Peak Optimus writing.

[angryaromantics]

I do feel like, as the cost of living crisis skyrockets, non-partnering aros are going to get hit harder and harder. There is no framework built into the infrastructure of our society for people who don't have a dual-income household, and it does become more difficult as you age to reliably live with friends.

There is, of course, the option to live with strangers, but that has it's own varied and dangerous downfalls. Hit just as hard, or perhaps even harder, are going to be those in abusive households who's chances of being able to afford to leave grow slimmer.

Like, this stuff IS grim, so we've gotta start making good financial decisions, and supporting each other where possible.

[communistkenobi]

the crazy thing about systemic oppression is that it actually doesn’t require the active conscious participation by millions of random individuals all spontaneously deciding to be bigoted for oppression to work