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mariacallous · 2 months ago

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In the latest chapter of presidential power, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order that broadened his authority over independent regulatory agencies that includes the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. Some aspects of the Federal Reserve would also fall under the presidential umbrella. Despite Congress having designed these government bodies to remain free from White House oversight, Trump is expanding his reach. The agencies will be required to subject proposals for regulations to being reviewed by the White House. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will now be able to withhold money and “adjust” expenditures if they conflict with what the president wants. Just to add to the limitations, the Department of Justice and the president have final judgment about what is lawful.

If there are any genuine anti-government Republicans left, they should be shocked by what they are seeing. If any individual harbors fear about the dangers of excessive authority vested in the hands of federal officials, they are witnessing exactly what can happen as Trump tears through spending, the government workforce, national defense institutions, and international alliances with the brute force afforded to the modern presidency. Although President Ronald Reagan empowered the OMB to exercise similar oversight over federal agencies, he left the independent agencies alone. Despite the fact that he is fighting to cut government, Trump’s unilateral deployment of power—directly challenging the authority of the courts and Congress—epitomizes what big government looks like.

Our current constitutional crisis is not the story of a singular individual. In fact, it is the story of a Republican Party that is now willingly and enthusiastically giving Trump the green light to demonstrate to the nation what robust federal power can achieve. On Capitol Hill, the administration’s support is so strong that the GOP is willing to hand over even more legislative authority so that nothing stands as an impediment to the president’s desires.

How did this come to be? It’s been decades in the making.

Starting with Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the liberal embrace of presidential power throughout the 20th century was a natural fit. With the House and Senate dominated from the 1930s through the 1980s by a bipartisan coalition of conservative Southern Democrats and Midwesterners, liberals came to champion the notion that the nation needed a strong president who could navigate vital legislation through a difficult legislative process and a large executive branch capable of carrying out new areas of policy. Starting with the Korean War in 1950, liberal internationalists became comfortable with a vast national security state that was often freed from strong mechanisms of accountability and no longer expected a declaration of war when presidents wanted to send troops into combat overseas. Only with Vietnam and Watergate did some of these liberals wake up to the dangers of the ��imperial presidency,” accepting the necessity of reforms that could curb executive power.

The marriage between Republicans and presidential power was not as inevitable. After all, the GOP has remained a party relatively committed to privileging markets and traditionally was skeptical that government officials, including the president, could be trusted. Before the 1970s, it was not uncommon for Republicans to criticize the growth of presidential power. Republicans joined conservative Democrats in railing against Roosevelt when he attempted to expand the size of the Supreme Court in 1937, comparing him to the dictators who were devastating Europe and Asia. Some Republicans, such as Ohio Senator Robert Taft, warned of a “garrison state” as President Harry Truman worked through a bipartisan coalition in the late 1940s to vastly built the Cold War national security apparatus of the executive branch. In 1959, one of the most influential conservative thinkers of the period, James Burnham, wrote that: “Legislative supremacy was thus not a novelty for the founding fathers, but a starting assumption. … [T]he primacy of the legislature in the intent of the Constitution is plain on the face of the document.”

Some of the fears of presidential power started to weaken during the 1950s when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower emerged as an extraordinarily popular figure in American public life. Many prominent Republicans had little to say when Eisenhower put forth claims of executive privilege to protect staffers and their data from anti-communists within his own party.

But the marriage between presidential power and Republican Party politics was fully consummated between 1969 and 1974 when President Richard Nixon was in the White House. Frustrated by the fact that he had to contend with a Democratic Congress, Nixon unleashed his authority without any sense of restraint. The president impounded billions of dollars of funds that Congress had appropriated; conducted secret military operations in Southeast Asia without congressional approval; and attempted to weaponize different parts of the executive branch, to be used against his opponents. Most dramatic of all, Nixon wielded presidential power to try to stop the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing a leaked study from the Pentagon in 1971 that exposed the lies that had been used to justify the war in Vietnam, and then leaned on the CIA to halt an FBI investigation into the break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in June 1972.

While the fallout from Watergate resulted in a series of reforms—such as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974—that attempted to rein in presidential power, those efforts ultimately proved limited. Many of the Republicans working within President Gerald Ford’s administration, including chief of staff Dick Cheney, believed that the Watergate investigation had been a partisan hit job and that the problems with Nixon were about him rather than the institution. Indeed, Ford’s pardon of Nixon on Sept. 8, 1974, as Jeffrey Toobin recounts in his new book, The Pardon, was one of the most brazen uses of that power up until that time.

Most Republicans thereafter doubled down on a strong president. Reagan, a hero to the right, was essential. Between 1981 and 1989, Reagan dominated the national scene. In terms of his presence and ability to shape the national agenda, Reagan was a living embodiment of the influence that a president could have. But there was more. Reagan made extensive use of executive orders to roll back environmental regulations. He bolstered the authority of the OMB to control the way that agencies spent their funds. When Congress imposed restrictions on the president from aiding anti-communist forces in Central America, high-ranking officials in the National Security Council funneled resources to the war using money from arms sales to Iran, a terrorist state.

During the 1980s, Republicans offered a number of arguments in favor of presidential dominance. Conservative legal scholars argued that it was imperative for the president to be stronger since liberals who, in their minds, had jettisoned the nondelegation doctrine (Article I, Section 1) that vested the power over agencies within the legislative branch. There was a cohort of young lawyers in the Department of Justice under Attorney General Edwin Meese, many of whom were connected to a new organization called the Federalist Society, who promoted a theory of originalism—making judicial decisions based on the original understanding of the Constitution—and the “unitary executive,” which insisted that the president had complete control over the entire executive branch.

One of the greatest sources of frustration for the right was the Office of Independent Counsel, the product of a post-Watergate reform in 1978, that conservatives said was not accountable to anyone. Republicans also merged anti-government conservatism with presidential power by claiming that only the commander in chief had the capacity to overcome a perpetually Democratic Congress and entrenched bureaucracies in their battle to shrink government. This logic extended to foreign policy, where Republicans alleged that the Democratic Congress, still shellshocked from Vietnam, refused to take the steps necessary to combat communism.

The zealous embrace of presidential power was front and center in the minority report of the Iran-Contra committee, which had spent the summer of 1987 investigating the way that Reagan’s administration had circumvented the legislative restrictions on assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras. Rather than deny that the administration had done anything, the minority report—authored by their leader Cheney, then a representative from Wyoming—instead defended what was done. “Congress must recognize,” they said, “that an effective foreign policy requires, and the Constitution mandates, the President to be the country’s foreign policy leader.”

This ethos has guided Republicans through this day, though at points they of course objected to presidential power when Democrats were in the White House. President George H.W. Bush, remembered for his judiciousness and restraint, defended the authority of his office. His head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Bill Barr, started the term in 1989 issued memos advocating this position.

Notably, even when President Bill Clinton was in office, Republicans did not pull back. Yes, they attacked him for being too aggressive in using his power on issues like the environment, but they also stayed the course on the bigger questions. In 1999, the GOP joined Democrats in allowing the independent counsel law to expire in 1999. Back in law schools, the conservative legal minds who came of age in the 1980s continued to write and teach about unitary executive theory, with the Federalist Society blossoming into an organization that connected students, scholars, judges, and Republican senators.

President George W. Bush led the nation through one of the biggest boosts of presidential power that the nation had experienced since the early Cold War. Following the terrorist attacks on the U.S. with 9/11, Bush pushed forward a massive expansion of the national security apparatus to combat stateless terrorism.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force in 2001 extended vast wartime powers to the president. As vice president, Cheney was able to bring some of the ideas he expounded in the minority report into the highest levels of power. The OLC produced a series of memos justifying strong-armed executive power, without congressional restraint, to do what was necessary to keep the country safe. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales insisted that the commander in chief needed virtually unlimited power, unbound from congressional law or international treaties, to respond to the crisis.

In one of the infamous “torture memos” that justified the use of “enhanced interrogation,” John Yoo argued for OLC: “The Framers understood the Commander-in-Chief Clause to grant the President the fullest range of power recognized at the time of the ratification as belonging to the military commander. . . . [T]he structure of the Constitution demonstrates that any power traditionally understood as pertaining to the executive—which includes the conduct of warfare and the defense of the nation—unless expressly assigned to Congress, is vested in the President.”

Bush relied on signing statements as a means of circumventing the legislature. When the media revealed how executive authority had been used to institute programs that allowed for the torture of detained individuals (which they called “enhanced interrogation”), Bush did not back down. In 2007, Bush signed a directive that required every agency to create a regulatory office, which would be filled with political loyalists, to oversee any issues that impacted industry. Toward the end of Bush’s second term, Cheney said: “If you think about what Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War, what FDR did during World War II, they went far beyond anything we’ve done in a global war on terror. But we have exercised, I think, the legitimate authority of the president under Article II of the Constitution as commander in chief in order to put in place policies and programs that have successfully defended the nation.”

Since Bush’s presidency, the Republican thirst for presidential power has never been quenched. During Trump’s first term, members of the GOP barely blinked when he flexed his muscle in ways that would have made Nixon blush, including in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. After he avoided being removed from office through the impeachment process or any legal punishment for what happened, Trump not only survived efforts to rein him in but returned to office emboldened.

As the United States finds itself in a moment when Trump and Republicans are loving presidential power, it should come as no surprise. This has been in the making for decades. Now there is a new radical legal theory of presidential power, that the New York Times recently reported on, which rests on the belief that the unitary executive theory is too tame. Vice President J.D. Vance has been a champion of this philosophy. They argue that even originalism does not go far enough. Through “post-originalism,” scholars can rest their robust claims of presidential power on theories about natural and divine law as well as Roman law.

Democrats have certainly been a big part of the story. They, too, have been willing to expand presidential authority under Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden in response to their frustrations of being unable to move issues through Congress. There has been a bipartisan agreement over delegating legislative authority in pursuit of party objectives. However, as some political scientists have argued, there has been an asymmetry in their use of this authority. As political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe wrote in 2023: “Because most of the administrative state is the embodiment of progressive values, presidents from the two parties respond to it very differently. Democratic presidents support it, so they tend to approach presidential power in ways compatible with the administrative state’s well-being, the laws that authorize and define it, and the continued pursuit of its many governmental missions. Republican presidents staunchly oppose it, looking upon it not just with skepticism but with outright contempt. And as their party has grown more conservative, they have laid claim to increasingly extreme powers intended not only to control but also to retrench and sabotage significant portions of the federal bureaucracy.”

The first few weeks of Trump 2.0 are an anniversary celebration of the Republican marriage to presidential power. Trump is just doing what many in the GOP had been dreaming about. And if anyone thinks there will be serious pushback from within the party anytime soon, they should remember the long history behind what is happening.

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prettiestboytoy2 · 1 year ago

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Studying economics for a decade has taught me that, unfortunately there are very few notions as misguided as "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence"

There are companies, institutions and think-tanks, filled to the brim with most capable and brightest people from related industries, working day and night to make everything worse for common people while making fat stacks of money.

Most economic problems could be solved relatively easily or at least thier negative effects could be greatly mitigated with minuscule expenditure of effort and resources. Housing, pollution, wages, inflation, education, urban planing, mental health, regular health. The list goes on.

What is preventing things from getting better is not incompetence, its malice of people who profit from current miserable status quo.

#late capitalism #economy #economics #finance

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frightmaresandscreamscapes · 3 months ago

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Tariffs

i asked elon musks ai to explain this to me, so i would be getting my information from what everyone is calling an unbiased source. so this is per GROK collection of data on the subject have fun......

Canada is a significant supplier of energy to the United States. According to various sources:

Crude Oil: Canada supplies about 60% of the U.S.'s crude oil imports.

Natural Gas: Canada is the source of nearly all (98% or 99%) of the U.S.'s natural gas imports.

Electricity: Canada exports a considerable amount of electricity to the U.S., with figures indicating around 33 terawatt-hours in 2023, which constitutes about 90% of the U.S.'s annual electricity imports.

Uranium: Canada also supplies 25% of the U.S.'s uranium imports.

This overview shows that the U.S. heavily relies on Canada for various forms of energy, making Canada one of the largest energy suppliers to the U.S.

So the government just taxes it's constituents by way of tariffs

Yes, in essence, tariffs can be seen as a way for the government to tax its constituents, but the mechanism and impact are more nuanced:

Direct Payment: Importers pay the tariff directly to the government when goods enter the country. These importers might be domestic companies or individuals.

Indirect Impact: The burden often gets passed on indirectly. Here's how:

Consumers: If importers increase the price of goods to cover the cost of tariffs, consumers end up paying more for these products. This is effectively a tax on consumption.

Businesses: Companies might absorb part of the tariff cost to remain competitive, impacting their profit margins or leading them to find cost-saving measures elsewhere, which could indirectly affect employees or other business decisions.

Revenue Collection: The government collects this revenue, which can be used for public expenditure, reducing other taxes, or paying down national debt. However, the primary goal of tariffs might also include protecting domestic industries, which can lead to higher prices for goods in general, not just imports.

Market Dynamics: Tariffs can alter market dynamics, sometimes leading to higher prices for both imported and domestic goods if domestic producers raise their prices due to less competition.

Economic Theory: Economists often discuss tariffs in terms of "tax incidence," which looks at who ultimately bears the economic burden. The incidence can split between consumers and producers based on how sensitive demand and supply are to price changes (elasticity).

So, while tariffs are a form of taxation that directly affects importers, the economic burden or "tax" can be shared among consumers, domestic producers, and importers in various proportions, depending on many factors including the specifics of the tariff, the type of goods, and market conditions.

Why does Donald trump think tariffs will pay America via foreign countries if it's the importer is the one that pays it

Donald Trump's rhetoric on tariffs, particularly during his campaigns and presidency, often emphasized the notion that tariffs are paid by foreign countries, which would, in turn, benefit the U.S. economy. Several reasons might explain this perspective:

Misunderstanding or Simplification for Political Messaging:

Trump might have simplified or misrepresented how tariffs work to fit into a political narrative. By saying that foreign countries pay tariffs, he could appeal to those who view trade as a zero-sum game where the U.S. should "win" against other countries. This simplification might be intended to resonate with voters by portraying him as tough on trade with nations perceived as economic adversaries, particularly China.

Negotiation Strategy:

Trump often used tariffs as leverage in trade negotiations. His claim that foreign countries pay might have been part of a strategy to pressure those countries into making concessions, assuming that they would see the tariffs as a direct cost they must bear to maintain access to the U.S. market.

Revenue Focus:

He emphasized the revenue aspect of tariffs, stating that they would fill the U.S. Treasury with money from foreign countries. This view overlooks the fact that while tariffs do generate revenue for the government, the economic cost is borne domestically by importers and consumers. Trump might have focused on the revenue collection aspect to highlight his plan to reduce the national deficit or fund his tax cuts without directly increasing domestic taxes.

Economic Nationalism:

Trump's economic policy was often framed under the banner of "America First," where tariffs were seen as a tool to protect and revive American industries. By suggesting that other countries pay, he could frame tariffs as a means to correct trade imbalances, even if economically, it's the domestic importers and consumers who bear the cost.

Public Perception and Media:

Trump's communication style frequently involved bold claims and straightforward messages over nuanced explanations. This approach might cater to public perception or media narratives where complex economic concepts are reduced to soundbites.

However, from an economic standpoint, as numerous analyses and expert opinions have pointed out, tariffs are typically paid by domestic importers, who then might pass on these costs to consumers or absorb them, affecting the price of goods or profit margins:

Economists' View: Studies and statements from economists, including those from institutions like the Peterson Institute for International Economics, have consistently shown that while tariffs generate revenue for the U.S. government, the economic burden largely falls on American businesses and consumers through higher prices or reduced profits.

Public Discourse on X: Posts on X have highlighted the misunderstanding, with users clarifying that tariffs are not paid by the exporting country but by U.S. importers, indirectly affecting U.S. consumers.

These sources emphasize that while the government collects the tariff revenue, it's the domestic market that feels the economic impact.

#president trump #donald trump #trump #trump 2024 #trump vance 2024 #trump vs harris #2024 presidential election #presidential debate #civil rights #human rights #thoughts and tariffs #trump tariffs #us tariffs #trade tariffs #25% tariffs #canada #grok

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topazadine · 8 months ago

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Why Mindfulness Is a Key Practice for Writers

A writer’s brain is chaos most of the time. We are all over the place, ping-ponging amongst a bramble of curious thoughts and half-snatched ideas. It can get pretty overwhelming in there, and this can distract us from our ultimate goal: to make something amazing that people love.

More than that, over-cogitation can cause burnout. When you’re on alert all the time, puzzling through difficult passages and plot holes, then you’ll quickly find yourself with no energy to continue your work.

But what if the antidote is to be head empty, no thoughts? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could simply rocket into the blissful void of Orange Cat Energy – whenever you want?

Well you can, my friend. That’s where mindfulness comes into play.

What Is Mindfulness?

I think everyone can benefit from mindfulness, but many get very intimidated by the concept because they have preconceived notions of what it actually means.

Mindful defines it as such:

Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.

That’s really all it is. You live precisely in the moment, not thinking about the future and not fretting over the past.

That means you’re not worrying about your writer’s block or spinning yourself into circles about whether you are a good writer (you are) or if you will get published someday (I believe in you!). You just are … being.

Why Is Mindfulness Important for Writers?

Your brain is an energy-hungry organ. It gobbles up one-fifth of your body’s nutritional input, despite being only 2% of your body weight.

That three-pound succubus is voracious, but there comes to a point where it is expending so much energy that it tires you out. This is especially true if you are going through any stressors or have subconscious frustrations that take up even more of your neural expenditure.

Just as your body needs time to recover from a strenuous exercise, so too does your mind need a bit of a reset. While sleep is awesome, it is also a time when your brain is cleaning itself out, flushing toxins, and building new connections. Yes, your poor brain really doesn’t get much of a break – ever.

But you can provide that break through mindfulness. During mindfulness, you don’t focus on the higher-level thinking that creativity demands; instead, you consider the little things that make life pleasant, emerging from this void space with a newfound appreciation and focus.

The Benefits of Mindfulness on Your Craft

Many of us writers want everything we do to help our work in some way; we live and breathe our writing, and we don’t want to waste a second without learning something new. And that’s great! Mindfulness can help with that, too.

When you take time each day to be a real part of this world, you’ll find you notice things that you never thought about before, such as the soft sound of snowing plinking down or the color of a nearby roof when the sun hits it just right. This can be tremendous fodder for building even more sumptuous descriptions into your writing.

Diving down into your inner self also allows you to feel how feelings really feel in your body. A prickle of irritation at a loud sound makes your neck tingle; contentment fills your stomach with a warm heaviness. Really focusing on something makes me feel as if I’m leaning into a spectral wind, and the edges of my vision darken into nothingness.

Knowing how each of these things impact you can help you build that into characterizations and connect with readers in a very meaningful, visceral way.

And of course, a stray thought about how to move your plot forward may appear. You can note it, appreciate it, and file it away for later, moving back into your comfy space of full attention on every sensation.

Ways to Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness doesn’t need to involve donning a saffron robe and chanting over a brazier filled with fragrant herbs – though it totally can if you’ve got the gumption. Go off!

However, most of us have other stuff to do with our lives and can’t head off to a monastery whenever we feel a bit work-heavy. Here’s how you can incorporant a sprinkle of serenity into your everyday life: custom-tailored to the writer mindset.

Meditation

Meditation is an excellent way to practice mindfulness, but when I started out, I found silent meditation to be almost more anxiety-inducing than not meditating at all. While I’ve built up my tolerance for it, I still don’t like it; instead, I prefer mantra meditation.

With mantra meditation, you repeat a phrase, silently or out loud, over and over again. If you are doing it religiously, you are supposed to recite it 108 times, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.

I am a Nichiren Buddhist, so I use the mantra “nam myoho renge kyo;” however, there are many lists of excellent mantras you can use instead. You can also make your own in your native tongue, but I have found that reciting something in a different language makes it easier to turn my mind off.

Mantra meditation works for a very simple reason: it is neurologically impossible to focus on two things at once. Even if you feel like you’re having two thoughts simultaneously, you’re actually not. If you are reciting a mantra, you’re not thinking about anything else, and this can clear up mental blockage.

No need to get the words perfect if you are practicing for relaxation. Listen to an audio of someone chanting it, and then go as slow or as fast as you want. Many people like the most simple mantra – “om” – because it requires no training whatsoever: just one long, drawn out syllable.

Take a deep breath, say “om,” and draw it out until your lungs are completely empty. There! Don’t you feel better?

Forest Bathing

Nature is all around us, even if we often ignore it. The otherworldly glory of a spiderweb, the curious antics of a squirrel, or the fragile grace of a deer browsing can all be magical experiences – if only you’ll let them.

Forest bathing as a concept is based in the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, which translates literally to forest bath. All it means is to spend some time outdoors with your phone off, relaxing and taking in the wilderness with all five of your senses.

Studies demonstrate that forest bathing helps to lower the heartrate and reduce stress. There is something innately healing about being surrounded by greenery, getting some fresh air, and appreciating the warm sunlight on your skin.

Of course, not all of us have two hours to go meander through a forest, or even have one within close proximity. And that’s okay! You can still benefit from nature bathing: consider it a low-dose form of nature bathing.

I like to sit by my living room window and watch the animals go by. Through taking the time to put down my phone and admire the world, I have seen the most beautiful sights, like a spider taking down a fly within seconds or a groundhog nibbling on my dandelions. These sound mundane, but as artists, we have a natural sense of whimsy that helps to make even the smallest experiences into a magical, world-grounding moment.

Just a few minutes of paying close attention to the nature outside, whether that is clouds skirting by or grass waving gently in the wind, can do marvels for your soul.

Cleaning

It’s an old stereotype that writers will organize their home top to bottom before they’ll actually sit down at their desk and write, but honestly? There’s a reason.

By organizing your physical space, you are reducing your mental burden.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners explains:

Bursting cupboards and piles of paper stacked around the house may seem harmless enough. But research shows disorganisation and clutter have a cumulative effect on our brains. Our brains like order, and constant visual reminders of disorganisation drain our cognitive resources, reducing our ability to focus. The visual distraction of clutter increases cognitive overload and can reduce our working memory. In 2011, neuroscience researchers using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and other physiological measurements found clearing clutter from the home and work environment resulted in a better ability to focus and process information, as well as increased productivity.

Now, I am a super messy person: many creatives are. A bit of clutter can be fine, but it can get to a point where it interferes with your happiness and leads to a cluttered mind, too.

You don’t need to become a minimalist, but organization can go a long way, and even washing dishes can help give you a sense of accomplishment that helps you get back to your document. When I feel antsy, I often find myself sweeping the floor, clearing out the cobwebs just as I want to banish those lurking in my brain.

Exercise

And finally, we get to exercise. Not only does it provide neurogenic benefits, but exercise is a mindful activity: you are focused on your movements and what your body is doing rather than anything outside of the gym.

Whether it is tramping along on a treadmill or lifting weights, you can seriously harm yourself if you’re not paying attention, which forces you to let go of everything else that you’re worried about.

I, being the freak I am, like exercise on hard mode, where I could seriously injure myself if I am not paying attention. As such, I am a huge fan of rock climbing and horseback riding, which are pretty much the ultimate practice of mindfulness. For rock climbing, you must be perfectly aware of your body at all times, down to the tiniest toe placement, or you'll go flying off the wall. And for horseback riding, all you have the space for is Horse, and your love of Horse, and how you'd give up your first-born child if Horse told you to.

Some people get an endorphin rush that provides them with a sense of well-being, but some are unfortunate enough not to experience such happiness, particularly those with chronic fatigue. However, the act of losing yourself in an activity can still provide you with the calm necessary to plow on when you’re done, and that is well worth it.

Mindfulness Shouldn’t Be Difficult

In fact, the more that you practice mindfulness, the more you will find that you enjoy it. This simple work of living with intention will enhance your appreciation for everyday life – and allow you ample mental rest for the hard work of writing.

There’s no need to go on some grand spirit journey to Tibet or an exotic island; you don’t even need a candle, yoga mat, or special incense. You don’t have to set up an altar or make it a spiritual practice at all.

Nearly anything can be a practice in mindfulness if it is done intentionally and with full awareness. Whatever you enjoy doing, stop and take a deep breath, then focus your whole being on that thing.

Don’t multi-task; don’t let your mind wander to other things. Whether that is walking your dog, playing with your children, or sweeping the floor, commit yourself to fully immersing in it. Engage all five senses and pass no judgment on what you feel, whether that is a siren wailing by or the unpleasant perfume of a stranger. Simply note it and let it flow past.

If you find mindfulness difficult, note that too, and accept your current feelings without shame or judgment. It’s okay. That’s part of mindfulness as well.

Now that you're being mindful, perhaps you'll consider purchasing my debut novel?

9 Years Yearning is a coming-of-age gay romance set in a fantasy world with poetry magic. It follows two young men as they grow from sorta-enemies, to frenemies, to friends, and finally to lovers.

If you do read it, please don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are essential to getting visibility on Amazon, so every single one is golden to me.

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dailyanarchistposts · 11 months ago

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F.4.1 What is wrong with a “homesteading” theory of property?

So how do “anarcho”-capitalists justify property? Looking at Murray Rothbard, we find that he proposes a “homesteading theory of property”. In this theory it is argued that property comes from occupancy and mixing labour with natural resources (which are assumed to be unowned). Thus the world is transformed into private property, for “title to an unowned resource (such as land) comes properly only from the expenditure of labour to transform that resource into use.” [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 63]

His theory, it should be stressed, has its roots in the same Lockean tradition as Robert Nozick’s (which we critiqued in section B.3.4). Like Locke, Rothbard paints a conceptual history of individuals and families forging a home in the wilderness by the sweat of their labour (it is tempting to rename his theory the “immaculate conception of property” as his conceptual theory is so at odds with actual historical fact). His one innovation (if it can be called that) was to deny even the rhetorical importance of what is often termed the Lockean Proviso, namely the notion that common resources can be appropriated only if there is enough for others to do likewise. As we noted in section E.4.2 this was because it could lead (horror of horrors!) to the outlawry of all private property.

Sadly for Rothbard, his “homesteading” theory of property was refuted by Proudhon in What is Property? in 1840 (along with many other justifications of property). Proudhon rightly argued that “if the liberty of man is sacred, it is equally sacred in all individuals; that, if it needs property for its objective action, that is, for its life, the appropriation of material is equally necessary for all … Does it not follow that if one individual cannot prevent another … from appropriating an amount of material equal to his own, no more can he prevent individuals to come.” And if all the available resources are appropriated, and the owner “draws boundaries, fences himself in … Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends … Let [this]… multiply, and soon the people … will have nowhere to rest, no place to shelter, no ground to till. They will die at the proprietor’s door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright.” [What is Property?, pp. 84–85 and p. 118]

Proudhon’s genius lay in turning apologies for private property against it by treating them as absolute and universal as its apologists treated property itself. To claims like Rothbard’s that property was a natural right, he explained that the essence of such rights was their universality and that private property ensured that this right could not be extended to all. To claims that labour created property, he simply noted that private property ensured that most people have no property to labour on and so the outcome of that labour was owned by those who did. As for occupancy, he simply noted that most owners do not occupancy all the property they own while those who do use it do not own it. In such circumstances, how can occupancy justify property when property excludes occupancy? Proudhon showed that the defenders of property had to choose between self-interest and principle, between hypocrisy and logic.

Rothbard picks the former over the latter and his theory is simply a rationale for a specific class based property rights system (”[w]e who belong to the proletaire class, property excommunicates us!” [P-J Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 105]). As Rothbard himself admitted in respect to the aftermath of slavery and serfdom, not having access to the means of life places one the position of unjust dependency on those who do and so private property creates economic power as much under his beloved capitalism as it did in post-serfdom (see section F.1). Thus, Rothbard’s account, for all its intuitive appeal, ends up justifying capitalist and landlord domination and ensures that the vast majority of the population experience property as theft and despotism rather than as a source of liberty and empowerment (which possession gives).

It also seems strange that while (correctly) attacking social contract theories of the state as invalid (because “no past generation can bind later generations” [Op. Cit., p. 145]) he fails to see he is doing exactly that with his support of private property (similarly, Ayn Rand argued that ”[a]ny alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the right of another, is not and cannot be a right” but, obviously, appropriating land does violate the rights of others to walk, use or appropriate that land [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 325]). Due to his support for appropriation and inheritance, Rothbard is clearly ensuring that future generations are not born as free as the first settlers were (after all, they cannot appropriate any land, it is all taken!). If future generations cannot be bound by past ones, this applies equally to resources and property rights. Something anarchists have long realised — there is no defensible reason why those who first acquired property should control its use and exclude future generations.

Even if we take Rothbard’s theory at face value we find numerous problems with it. If title to unowned resources comes via the “expenditure of labour” on it, how can rivers, lakes and the oceans be appropriated? The banks of the rivers can be transformed, but can the river itself? How can you mix your labour with water? “Anarcho”-capitalists usually blame pollution on the fact that rivers, oceans, and so forth are unowned but as we discussed in section E.4, Rothbard provided no coherent argument for resolving this problem nor the issue of environmental externalities like pollution it was meant to solve (in fact, he ended up providing polluters with sufficient apologetics to allow them to continue destroying the planet).

Then there is the question of what equates to “mixing” labour. Does fencing in land mean you have “mixed labour” with it? Rothbard argues that this is not the case (he expresses opposition to “arbitrary claims”). He notes that it is not the case that “the first discoverer … could properly lay claim to” a piece of land by “laying out a boundary for the area.” He thinks that “their claim would still be no more than the boundary itself, and not to any of the land within, for only the boundary will have been transformed and used by men” However, if the boundary is private property and the owner refuses others permission to cross it, then the enclosed land is inaccessible to others! If an “enterprising” right-“libertarian” builds a fence around the only oasis in a desert and refuses permission to cross it to travellers unless they pay his price (which is everything they own) then the person has appropriated the oasis without “transforming” it by his labour. The travellers have the choice of paying the price or dying (and any oasis owner is well within his rights letting them die). Given Rothbard’s comments, it is probable that he could claim that such a boundary is null and void as it allows “arbitrary” claims — although this position is not at all clear. After all, the fence builder has transformed the boundary and “unrestricted” property rights is what the right-“libertarian” is all about. One thing is true, if the oasis became private property by some means then refusing water to travellers would be fine as “the owner is scarcely being ‘coercive’; in fact he is supplying a vital service, and should have the right to refuse a sale or charge whatever the customers will pay. The situation may be unfortunate for the customers, as are many situations in life.” [Op. Cit., p. 50f and p. 221] That the owner is providing “a vital service” only because he has expropriated the common heritage of humanity is as lost on Rothbard as is the obvious economic power that this situation creates.

And, of course, Rothbard ignores the fact of economic power — a transnational corporation can “transform” far more virgin resources in a day by hiring workers than a family could in a year. A transnational “mixing” the labour it has bought from its wage slaves with the land does not spring into mind reading Rothbard’s account of property but in the real world that is what happens. This is, perhaps, unsurprising as the whole point of Locke’s theory was to justify the appropriation of the product of other people’s labour by their employer.

Which is another problem with Rothbard’s account. It is completely ahistoric (and so, as we noted above, is more like an “immaculate conception of property”). He has transported “capitalist man” into the dawn of time and constructed a history of property based upon what he is trying to justify. He ignores the awkward historic fact that land was held in common for millennium and that the notion of “mixing” labour to enclose it was basically invented to justify the expropriation of land from the general population (and from native populations) by the rich. What is interesting to note, though, is that the actual experience of life on the US frontier (the historic example Rothbard seems to want to claim) was far from the individualistic framework he builds upon it and (ironically enough) it was destroyed by the development of capitalism.

As Murray Bookchin notes, in rural areas there “developed a modest subsistence agriculture that allowed them to be almost wholly self-sufficient and required little, if any, currency.” The economy was rooted in barter, with farmers trading surpluses with nearby artisans. This pre-capitalist economy meant people enjoyed “freedom from servitude to others” and “fostered” a “sturdy willingness to defend [their] independence from outside commercial interlopers. This condition of near-autarchy, however, was not individualistic; rather it made for strong community interdependence … In fact, the independence that the New England yeomanry enjoyed was itself a function of the co-operative social base from which it emerged. To barter home-grown goods and objects, to share tools and implements, to engage in common labour during harvesting time in a system of mutual aid, indeed, to help new-comers in barn-raising, corn-husking, log-rolling, and the like, was the indispensable cement that bound scattered farmsteads into a united community.” Bookchin quotes David P. Szatmary (author of a book on Shay’ Rebellion) stating that it was a society based upon “co-operative, community orientated interchanges” and not a “basically competitive society.” [The Third Revolution, vol. 1, p. 233]

Into this non-capitalist society came capitalist elements. Market forces and economic power soon resulted in the transformation of this society. Merchants asked for payment in specie (gold or silver coin), which the farmers did not have. In addition, money was required to pay taxes (taxation has always been a key way in which the state encouraged a transformation towards capitalism as money could only be made by hiring oneself to those who had it). The farmers “were now cajoled by local shopkeepers” to “make all their payments and meet all their debts in money rather than barter. Since the farmers lacked money, the shopkeepers granted them short-term credit for their purchases. In time, many farmers became significantly indebted and could not pay off what they owed, least of all in specie.” The creditors turned to the courts and many the homesteaders were dispossessed of their land and goods to pay their debts. In response Shay’s rebellion started as the “urban commercial elites adamantly resisted [all] peaceful petitions” while the “state legislators also turned a deaf ear” as they were heavily influenced by these same elites. This rebellion was an important factor in the centralisation of state power in America to ensure that popular input and control over government were marginalised and that the wealthy elite and their property rights were protected against the many (“Elite and well-to-do sectors of the population mobilised in great force to support an instrument that clearly benefited them at the expense of the backcountry agrarians and urban poor.”) [Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 234, p. 235 and p. 243]). Thus the homestead system was, ironically, undermined and destroyed by the rise of capitalism (aided, as usual, by a state run by and for the rich).

So while Rothbard’s theory as a certain appeal (reinforced by watching too many Westerns, we imagine) it fails to justify the “unrestricted” property rights theory (and the theory of freedom Rothbard derives from it). All it does is to end up justifying capitalist and landlord domination (which is what it was intended to do).

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thisisnotmeta · 1 year ago

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Million Dollar Man

Chapter 2

The train journey to London unfolded with a continuous hum, a rhythmic repetition of tracks beneath its carriage wheels. I leaned against the window, gazing into the passing landscape that morphed into its own mosaic of fleeting images. The city sprawling out before me, a canvas painted with the subtle hues of the afternoon.

Ben messaged me a couple of days ago inviting me to Jack Hatton’s (lead of streaming at Dirty Hit) leaving party in London - I made a mental note of the fact that he was leaving to move to Australia with his girlfriend - incase I needed a conversation topic… just for my socially anxious brain. As much as I was excited to meet more of the team and potentially the artists, my enthusiasm mingled with a thick layer of apprehension.

The city lights flickered in the distance, casting shadows on my skin as I considered the people I could potentially encounter there - industry insiders, artists of the label, potentially new… friends? The invitation felt like a pass into a realm where my burgeoning career could intertwine with the established echelons of the music industry and it made me feel slightly sick, especially since I was going in alone.

Stepping onto London’s turf, I deliberately chose a hotel in Canary Wharf, paid for by yours truly - this choice being highlighted by my newfound but still modest monthly income courtesy of Dirty Hit. With a sense of fiscal responsibility guiding me, I made a conscious decision to specifically allocate these earnings towards my career and music in general (ie. Travel, hotels, instruments) - the frivolous expenditures can be done by my part time job at home, I thought.

Unpacking with ease, I had some time to kill before needing to get ready. The hotel, strategically positioned just a 15-minute walk from the venue, became my new hub. The TV emitted a soft glow, casting an ephemeral light on the hotel room. Mindless reruns of “Victorious” played in the background, their laughter and scripted drama a distant hum. Perched on the edge of the bed, I idly observed the characters on the screen. At just 23, I couldn’t shake the subtle unease about the most definite generation gap I would be encountering at the party.

What am I getting into? I mused, scrutinising my own reflection in the TV’s muted light.

The likely attendees loomed in my mind. I always strive to never care about how I will be perceived in times like this but it gets the better of me here. Would they see me as a songwriter? Or just another one trying to get by as an amateur artist like every other angsty young adult. Am I truly just crashing a party beyond my years? Do I sound like an absolute idiot right now?

My apprehension found a bit of refuge in the idea that there’s a few youthful signings to Dirty Hit in the recent years - hopefully they don’t cancel like I was contemplating to do a few minutes ago.

In the lingering hours leading up to the event, I settle into a quiet rhythm, my fingers dancing across the strings of my guitar. Quietly strumming to not upset anyone next door, the melodies echoed through the room. Jotting down anything that resonated with me on my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles notebook, I sought solace in the familiar embrace of my instrument, using it as my own vessel to get out the jumble of nerves and excitement within me.

My upcoming encounter with Matty Healy on the ‘songwriting getaway’ loomed large in my mind. He has a profound reputation for his creative mind, occasionally flirting with pretentiousness, but an intricate and enviable mind nonetheless. Would he see the potential in my songwriting?

The weight of his potential judgement fuelled my determination to impress him with the depth of my ideas. A fangirl moment interrupted my thoughts as the realisation struck - Matty might be at the party. It wasn’t even an outlandish notion either; after all, he was apart of the label, a big part at that. The mere possibility that the entirely of The 1975 might grace the event sent a shiver down my spine. Amid the brief reverie, I needed to refocus.

I want to show him good work.

A few more minutes of brainstorming and writing down ideas pass. “We all look for heaven, and we put love first,” was a phrase born from the introspective haze of my disassociation. I wrote down a few more ideas to pair with it - I liked it, it was earnest and real… hopefully others would think the same.

Glancing at my phone, the numbers told me there were still two and a half hours left. I nudged myself off of the bed and started the practical task of getting ready for the night. The shower became a sanctuary, the hot water cascading over me, it was a welcoming embrace after the lingering residue of travelling. As steam filled the bathroom, I closed my eyes, letting the warmth wash away not just the physical grime but the lingering nerves that clung to my skin.

Turning off the shower, I stood before the mirror, my damp hair awaiting transformation - fingers crossed. After drying, I curled and weaved strands into pin curls, a skill passed down from my mum. The familiarity of the routine was comforting. Makeup followed, the unfamiliar intensity of liner, mascara and slightly over-lined lips were a subtle nod at my newfound insecurity in my maturity. It made me look a little more mature, I guess. My hold-all offered a few choices of different outfits. I selected an off-the-shoulder black lace top, low-waisted jeans that hugged my hips and point-heeled boots to complete the ensemble. I surveyed myself in the mirror, definitely passable for the evening. With fourty-five precious minutes ticking down, I unraveled the pin curls, each strand dropping down into place showing a nice ‘blowout’ style. The air filled with the sweet embrace of my perfume, a final touch to my persona tonight.

Turning to my phone, I couldn’t resist the urge to take a couple selfies before heading out - I’m Gen Z, give me a break. Downstairs, the bar beckoned with the confident offering of liquid courage. I approached, I definitely need something strong. Ordering a double vodka, lemonade and a splash of blackcurrant, I winced as the contactless reader slapped me with a hefty £12.00 charge. Ah, London prices. The glass in my hand became my talisman, my elixir to bolster my resolve. As I sipped the time away, nerves tingled beneath my skin.

The party was likely in full swing by now, but my strategic calculations told me that arriving 30 minutes later meant most would be deep into their second drink, too dizzy to give me more than a fleeting thought. I nursed my drink, eyeing the clock, unwilling to dish out another £12 when a free bar awaited me at the venue. As I contemplated moving to a more comfortable spot a few feet away from the bar, my phone lit up with a message from Ben.

Eta?

Pre drinking alone at the bar haha. My university student brain is fried at London prices.

Nice lol, thought you weren’t coming for a sec. See you later.

Finishing the remnants of my drink, I relished the familiar burn as the liquid slid down. The hum of conversation and clinking glasses around me formed an antithetical soundtrack to the city’s docile pulse outside, excluding the occasional taxi driving past. I found a comfortable refuge in the short time i’d sat here, not really finding it in my feet to leave yet. The dim lighting cast a warm glow, creating their own little pockets of intimacy. A plush, but old-fashioned patterned carpet absorbed people’s footsteps, and the scent of aged wood and polished brass lingered in the air.

Pulling up the venue’s address on my phone, I looked at the walking journey on my screen. Google maps being my sacred guide through the labyrinth that is London streets - and oh, what I would do without it. And I know what you’re thinking: Camille, why the fuck are you planning on walking the streets of London at night alone? That is, my angels, because I am a cheap bitch and I refuse to spend £5 for a 3 minute car journey - I will just take my chances.

With a final glance at my phone, I examined the reflection staring back at me - not bad. I absolutely didn’t look like I was overcompensating for being an absolute nobody/foetus at this party.

Popping off the high bar chair, I smoothed down my top, my fingers brushing against the lace. As I reached the exit, the city’s climate bared itself to me, pinchingly cold air wafted onto me. The initial opening of the door was bad, but once I was outside, I was able to absorb most of the coolness. The glow of the streetlights guiding my way, casting a golden hue on the pavement.

At the end of my very safe -actually- walk, I was greeted by the bright LED sign that boldly announced the bar venue - ‘Pergola On The Wharf’. The glowing letters ambient against the night sky, like a beacon to draw people in. I could hear the muffled laughter and music through the refined brick walls. Stepping underneath the halo of the sign, I took a moment to myself, letting the good vibes and energy seep onto me. I made a mental commitment to let go of any lingering anxiety and embrace what could be a really fun night ahead. Maybe I’ll find Ben or I could introduce myself to other producers, or maybe even talk to Holly or Jamie.

Putting everything behind me, I stepped through the door of the bustling nexus of a bar. Unfolding everything before me, it was flooded with an array of unfamiliar faces, each one adorned with a concoction of some type of alcohol in their hand, laughter bubbling from every corner.

Groups of people, all talking together to make a harmonious cacophony, were scattered across the contemporary styled and what looked like plant-filled botanical bar. Lush ferns, vines, and vibrant flora adorned every corner and ceiling pane, creating a natural abundance of decoration. The vast glass window at the back offered a panoramic view of the dock outside, hinting that this bar probably had an inundation of bright, natural light during the daytime - which was a stark contrast to the glowing, candle-lit evening tonight. The aroma through the air was an intoxicating blend of florals and oud. A faint hint of cigarettes clung to people’s knitwear and thick clothing, adding a touch of ease to the ambiance.

Navigating through the basically sea of people, I looked around for any familiar faces. Some people danced energetically on the makeshift dance floor, lost in the rhythmic allure of the older club classics spun by the DJ in the corner, whilst others gathered in clusters, sat and stood all around. Amidst the crowd, I saw someone at the bar that caught my eye - a girl, roughly my age, who I knew just recently signed a deal with Dirty Hit, just a couple of months before me. She was engaged in a conversation with an unfamiliar face as they were paying for their drinks.

Seizing the opportunity to make some new friends, I made my way over, introducing myself with a smile. “Hey, hope I’m not interrupting, but I don’t really know anyone here. I’m Camille, I just signed with Dirty Hit a couple of months ago.”

“Hey! No, you’re totally fine,” her thick Scottish accent welcomed me warmly, the girl next to her turning also with a friendly grin. “I’m Isla and this is Sorcha. I was signed a few months ago as well so I don’t really know anyone here, so I thought I’d bring a plus one.”

“I didn’t even realise you could bring someone,” I laughed. “I wish I brought someone from home because honestly, an hour ago I was debating not even coming.”

“Oh, there was no plus ones allowed,” Isla replied in a hush, leaning in closer. “I just hope they think Sorcha’s one of the interns!”

Isla, a girl with unmistakable Scottish charm, stood out with her gorgeous, curly, ginger hair that tumbled in a cascade of vibrant, thick waves. Her fair skin bore the artistry of delicately placed freckles, and a bright smile that creased her eyes. Next to her, Sorcha was a striking contrast with her tanned complexion. Her long straight black hair flowed with a sleek elegance, framing her face and adding a touch of shine. Sorcha’s features were chiseled, embodying a blend of modernity but classic allure at the same time. They both were gorgeous and looked like a dynamic duo only seen in movies.

We found a comfortable spot at the bar, and talked about what we were working on in our early days being signed at our label. Sorcha was still in University, studying media and radio in hopes to have her own radio show one day. Isla was found via TikTok and had amassed an impressive following of 70k for her covers before she was scouted. She had been working with one of Dirty Hit’s partner producers in Scotland to save the constant trips, and is looking at releasing her first single in the next few weeks, which is so exciting.

“It’s called ‘Do I Have Your Attention?’, it’s basically a slow, acoustic song about my relationship with my family. I’m really proud of it,” she beams, circling her finger around the glass top of her cocktail.

“Honestly, that’s so exciting,” I smile at her. “I’ll keep an eye out for it when it’s out!”

“Aw, yeah, you should give me a text and let me know what you think about it!” Isla replies as she grabs her phone out of her pocket and slides it over to me. “Put your number in, always good to stay in touch with each other!”

Whilst putting my number in her phone, it seemed like a perfect time to grab a drink. I perused the menu, green circular stickers next to certain drinks indicated what was and wasn’t apart of the included drinks tab tonight. Opting for a French martini, I joined the conversation again, mentally wiping the sweat off my forehead for finding people I could talk to.

“What are you working on right now?” Sorcha shifted the spotlight onto me.

“I’ve had a few sessions with a few producers to establish what sound I want to make, I think I’ve found my voice with one of them, so I’m excited to work with him again,” I say, thanking the bartender as he brought over my freshly made French Martini. “I actually got a call a week or so ago about if I was interested in going on a work getaway for a few days to make new music, so all I’m doing right now is just writing down anything I like or anything I think I could use in a song. The idea of showing off my ideas to them is so nerve wracking.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Isla chimed in with understanding, acknowledging the pressure in the industry. “Everyone has so much experience and is so creative, that it’s actually really anxiety inducing to show them what you’ve been working on, honestly I’m completely in the same boat. But everyone here is just so lovely.”

Her reassurance carried the weight of our shared anxiety, and I found comfort in her words. As we moved away from the bustling bar, standing amidst the lively crowd, Isla's curiosity veered toward the details of my upcoming musical getaway. I shared the scant information I had – a countryside location, collaboration with Ben, and the unexpected mention of Matty from The 1975 expressing interest in working with me, for some unknown reason.

"Matty Healy?" Sorcha's eyes widened, leaning in with genuine awe. Isla, equally surprised, exchanged glances with her friend. "Are you friends with him?"

I chuckled at Sorcha's enthusiasm and Isla's teasing nudges into her friend’s arm. The playful banter lightened the mood as I clarified that I wasn't friends with Matty, but rather, the prospect of collaborating with him was a part of the upcoming getaway.

Sorcha, in her unabashed love for Matty Healy, couldn't help but gush over the luck tied to the opportunity. Her cheeky question, a typical Love Island-esque move, drew an amused look from Isla. I navigated the topic, acknowledging Matty's attractiveness and creative prowess while trying to gracefully sidestep the "do you fancy him?" inquiry.

"I mean, he's definitely attractive," I replied with a hint of laughter, unsure how to navigate the question diplomatically. Admitting my admiration while surrounded by his friends and colleagues required a delicate balance of honesty and discretion. "I saw him at Leeds once, and, well, he was quite a sight."

Sorcha’s unabashed admiration for Matty echoed through the buzzing atmosphere of the party, her eyes scanning the room as if expecting the man of the hour to materialise. She turned back to face me, a mix of awe and envy painted on her face.

“I think he’s fucking stunning,” she declared, her gaze still darting around the venue in search of, to her, the elusive rock god. “I’m gonna be honest; I am so, so jealous of you right now. I’m absolutely in love with that man.”

“I know, it’s so surrea-“ I begin to share my thoughts with her, only to be abruptly cut off by Sorcha’s relentless proclamation of undying love for Matty Healy. Isla, seated beside her, sank slightly into her wooden chair, glancing between the two of us with a mixture of amusement, embarrassment and concern.

“The fact that he could even be in this room right now is driving me insane,” Sorcha continued, fervently expressing her infatuation and getting her point across (very much so) to me.

“I know it’s—“ I attempted to respond, but Sorcha’s enthusiasm overpowered any chance of a cohesive conversation.

“When you’re on your ‘getaway’ with him, you need to FaceTime me or something, she exclaimed, her excitement escalating as she fumbled for something in her purse. Suddenly, her phone emerged in her hand like a prized possession, and the conversation took a turn that left me feeling a bit uncomfortable, if I wasn’t already. “Then you can be like, ‘oh, this is my friend; I think you guys would get on well’ - something like that. Here, let me get your number!”

With the commotion, Isla sprang from her seat, nearly toppling over a woman in a black fur coat trying to navigate past her. The two exchanged hurried apologies before Isla seized Sorcha’s hand, pulling her away from the table.

“One sec, come with me to the toilet really quickly,” Isla instructed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sorcha replied, following Isla’s lead. Before disappearing into the crowd, she turned back, flashing a wide smile my way. “I’ll find you later, okay?”

“Yeah, of course!” I shoot her a polite closed mouth smile back at her, my attention then shifting to Isla. She mouthed a guilt-ridden ‘sorry’ before vanishing into the sea of people. Well, that was interesting. I couldn’t help but think that maybe avoiding Sorcha for the rest of the night might be a good idea, as endearing as her enthusiasm was.

Amidst that wild chaos of an interaction, I rose from my seat, scanning the crowded room for any familiar faces. At least I already filled an hour or so of being here.

Before I began walking around aimlessly, a familiar voice cut through the hum of the crowd, and I turned to see Ben waving from the back of the bar near the windows.

“Camille!” he called out, his thick curly hair falling just before his shoulders. His tanned skin was complimented by wearing a white button up and fitted dress trousers. I weaved through the pulsating mass of people, relieved to have found a familiar anchor in this place.

“How’s things?” Ben asked, taking me in a brief hug, careful not to spill his pint of cider in his hand. “Thought you were gonna bail.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “No, no, couldn’t miss out on a free bar, don’t be silly.”

“I know, think I’ve saved sixty pound already tonight,” he chucked, bringing his glass into the air, causing some of it to spill over the top. For someone who’s probably had 8/9 pints of cider now, he wasn’t overly drunk, just on a good wavelength I would say.

We caught up for a while, talking about what we’ve been doing since we last saw each other, which wasn’t long at all. Ben talked about the new audio interface that he’s just bought for the studio and how he’s excited to try it out with me. A lot of our conversation was about our upcoming getaway, touching on topics like our favourite takeaways and how we are actually going to the Cotswolds for a week to write, which was exciting as I’d heard that that place was one of the most beautiful places in the country!

“Do you smoke weed?” Ben asked casually, his gaze fixed on his now-empty pint of cider with a frown. “Totally fine if not, just I know Matty and I probably will be bringing some down with us… if you’re fine with it?”

“God, don’t even be silly, of course you can,” I reply with a laugh, fanning away his slight concern with my hand. I didn’t smoke a lot, but when I did, it would usually make my throat hurt the morning after, so I tend to stay away from it but edibles are another story. The amount of times me and my flatmates at university used up the last of our change in our pockets to buy laced Haribos after a long week of studying, I couldn’t count on my fingers. Those were the best times. “I’m not much into smoking, but I’ll fetch some gummies or brownies down as well, what do you think?”

“Honestly, that’s perfect,” he smiled at my offer, and we sealed our agreement with the clink of our empty glasses. “Think it really gets your mind going to places you can’t explore otherwise, great for writing, plus it just gets you chilled out, doesn’t it?”

I was about to reply when a hand was firmly placed on Ben’s shoulder, a black nicely fitting long sleeve and washed out blue jeans was the first glance I got of him. He excluded the smell of thick smoke and some sort of expensive alluring fragrance, he must’ve been outside for a cigarette and then reapplied his cologne just a couple minutes ago - that or the cologne was just that strong.

“Going to the bar, mate. You wanting the same again?” Matty asked raising his eyebrows, holding his empty glass and pointing at Ben’s with the same hand. His eyes briefly flickered to mine before doing a very obviously double take at me. “Oh hi, Darling, I should’ve introduced myself sooner. I’m Matty.”

“No, you’re fine!” I say quickly before I’m engulfed in a hug from him, his smell being even more intoxicating this close. Yeah, I get what Sorcha was saying now. “I’m Camille, how are you?”

“I know exactly who you are, I’ve been listening to your work with Ben for a bit,” he says, beaming between the two of us in front of him, clearly a lot more gone than Ben. “I’m great though, what are you drinking? I’ll fetch you back something.”

Before I could reply, Ben intervened by taking both mine and Matty’s glasses from our hands. “You’ve went and got my last two, Matty. I’ll get this next one. Same again?”

“Yeah, please, mate. Love you, mate, thank you,” he replied slightly slurring his words as he had both hands on Ben’s shoulders giving him an affectionate shake.

As Ben made his way towards the bar, it left us momentarily alone together in this hectic room of a party. I found myself just stood beside Matty, a subtle tension lingering in the air as if waiting for each other to speak first.

A sly grin crept across Matty’s face and I couldn’t help but return it.

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ten-cent-sleuth · 2 years ago

Text

A Galling Yoke, Part 5

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for the Location: Tearoom square on my July Break Bingo card

See this post for main info, including a masterlist and synopsis. See this post for warnings.

Word Count: 3.8k

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x f!Reader

Rating: Teen

Rogers fetched you from the wine cellar just in the middle of your regular review of its stores. Your bellyaching about his deplorable timing was only silenced by his quirked brow and curt “Mr Holmes said it was urgent, ma’am”.

Mr Holmes.

Any irritation washed away. To your inconvenience and your pleasure, you found that whatever trials and triumphs you derived from your staid lifestyle as unattached mistress of your own home were easily displaced by the trials and triumphs derived in Sherlock’s presence. The latter simply tended to be so much deeper, so much weightier than the former.

That did not stop you from shooting Sherlock a dark look as Rogers led you into the front sitting room.

“We agreed to meet after luncheon, sir,” you scolded him.

Furrowing his brow, he clicked open his pocket watch. “It is twenty past noon. I suppose I do eat a little earlier on days I have plans for an investigation, but…”

“We are going to a tearoom,” you said, though amusement was beginning to break through your voice. “I meant hours after luncheon.”

He flushed. “Ah. Yes, of course. Well—”

You waved your hand. “This works fine. It shall still be open for business; we shall simply have to stay there for a while to be around for the rush hour.”

“Hours in your company, my lady? However shall I go on,” he said so dryly that it didn’t even sound like a question.

You snickered, then the possibility struck you that he had come this early precisely for that reason, if only subconsciously. Shaking the notion out of your head, you said, “Allow me to change into a tea gown before we depart.”

He gave you a strange look but nodded. You startled when you found Rogers standing…well, rather like standing guard in the hallway.

“Your ladyship,” he greeted, as though these were normal proceedings in Voss House.

“Er…Rogers,” you returned, not wanting to get into it, not at all.

You hummed to yourself as you headed to your chambers. Clearly, while Sherlock knew what was expected of the upper classes, he still hadn’t wrapped his head around you subscribing to those expectations. He likely had never heard you utter the words “tea gown” before today. At Ferndell, you were free to do anything and be anyone; now, you didn’t think you even knew how to act so freely.

Twenty minutes later, you re-entered the front of the house and stopped short at the sight of Sherlock waiting. His lips barely lifted, but his pleasure was unquestionable as it shone from his eyes. Unlike other gentlemen, he did not compliment your fabric or your figure, as was expected; what did surprise you was that he just as much refrained from making a snide remark about the expenditure or the frivolity.

“My lady,” he said softly, offering you his arm. His right arm.

“Have you forgotten your schoolroom lessons, Mr Holmes?” you teased. “How shall you take your hat off to your acquaintances on the street if I am on your right side?”

He arched a brow in challenge. “I shall not acknowledge any acquaintance at the cost of failing to support the side of yours that needs it.”

You cleared your throat. Another surprise. Then you took his arm.

Once he led you a few paces forward, you noticed Rogers standing by. You raised your eyebrows at him—was he watching Sherlock?—but did not question him.

The London air was thin and fresh with winter, though the sun glowed warmly from its zenith. You managed both the occasional stabs of pain or shakiness in your leg and the curious glances from other pedestrians wondering at your abnormal stance with the steady presence at your side. His muscled arm was a sturdy rock beneath your gloved fingers and his vigilant gaze an unbroken shield around you.

So secure did you feel because of him that you almost did not register that he was speaking to you for the uncertainty in his voice: “Are you sure I shall not be a hindrance to this mission? From what Enola and her, ah, contacts tell me, tearooms are quite the lady’s respite from gentlemen.”

“Quite sure,” you replied. “It is not uncommon for a young lady to bring a male friend or indeed a suitor to visit with her friends in a tearoom, and they need not even be chaperoned for it to be entirely proper. It may be a mite odd that it shall only be the two of us, but my being a widow and your being a known figure in London ought to mitigate that.”

“Am I truly such a known figure?” he questioned. “What if all the wagging tongues you promised me shall hold themselves in recognition of a detective in their midst?”

“I had not thought of that. Hmm. We shall have to hope that my presence frees those very tongues.”

“Your presence?” His attempt to lighten his voice so that he sounded incurious did not quite succeed.

“Indeed. As a maiden, I was the daughter of the Earl of Coltidge; as a wife, I was the property of the Earl of Pittford’s youngest son; as a widow, I am recognisable, noticeable, in my own right.”

Sherlock hummed thoughtfully. “Yes…by now, you have been in charge of your finances and movements in London for four times longer than you had been under Mr Sulyard’s thumb. I do not imagine that you had sat idly by in all that time,” he mused. “You must have seized the opportunity to forge your own reputation, carve out your own corner of the ton. The ladies who frequent tearooms—they shall feel comfortable in your presence?”

You tipped your head at him. “Very good.”

He huffed at your jab yet—if you were not imagining it—pulled you closer to his side all the same.

Upon entering the tearoom, Sherlock informed you under his breath of his observations: who took no interest in the newcomers, who was suddenly sneaking glances at Sherlock out of the corner of their eyes and likely planning to hurry away as soon as possible, who snapped their mouth shut at your arrival but was now whispering all the more vigorously. You bit your lip to keep your smile from showing; when you had told him the day before about Edmund’s possible affair, he had been eager to see the theory to its natural conclusion, but when you had pointed out that very little concrete evidence would be left after a dozen years’ erosion, he had dragged his heels to validate the alternative source of gossip. If the gleam in his eye as he analysed the room before him was anything to go by, however, he seemed to have forgotten his objections.

You had selected this establishment out of the many options in London because it was a personal favourite of The Most Honourable Lady Notley, the Marchioness Brindon and the unofficial head purveyor of marital problems among the first circles. If one were to hear any information about a decade-old affair, it would be coming out of her ladyship’s mouth or going into her ladyship’s ears. After you led Sherlock to a strategically located table and explained this to him, he whispered conspiratorially, “Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either.”

You grinned at him. “I accept your apology.”

The next few hours passed in like fashion. To you, he described noteworthy behaviours—of suspicion, of anxiety, of mischief. To him, you delineated the most effective ways of finding out more about those characters based on their particular habits—at balls, during calling hours, by the servant grapevine. He wrote down these plans to enact at a later date. When you both agreed that it would be possible and efficient to dig deeper about a given person right there and then, you would take turns executing some ruse to wander closer and eavesdrop or prod.

After the third time one of you had gotten up to refill your pot of tea, a waitress had started coming around to do it for you, giving you both stern looks as though your self-service had questioned the employees’ ability to serve you.

“Gracious,” muttered Sherlock as the waitress dashed to your table and away with preternatural speed, “I see now why they are called ‘nippies’.”

Smothering your giggle with a cough, you stood up and smoothed your skirts. “Since we no longer have that excuse, I”—you threw your voice—“shall have to take a turn about the room.”

He smirked, likely enjoying witnessing the ridiculous lengths to which you were willing to go for this investigation. “Enjoy, my dear,” he drawled—for the ploy, of course, you reassured yourself.

You whetted your ears as you approached Mrs Gouldsmith’s table, the matron having glanced at you across the room a dozen times in five minutes according to Sherlock.

“—sshhh! She is right there!”

“Oh, hush, Fanny, she shan’t care a jot what ladies such as we are whispering about.”

“Harriet is right, Fanny. The Vosses think themselves quite superior.”

“Can that be true? Her ladyship has always seemed agreeable and considerate to me…”

“Of course she seems that way, Fanny: she is all things proper. But siblings are never too different from each other, and that Viscount Pashbroke is the worst sort of man.”

“Do you not recall what he did to my poor Emily?”

“Oh, yes. Fanny, you could not have forgotten poor heartbroken Emily?”

“No, no, but—was Emily truly all so heartbroken?”

“What a question! Of a certainty she was! The dear girl has already gone through four Seasons without so much as a second dance from the same gentleman in one night. Then last June, she met Lord Pashbroke!”

“Everyone in Town could see they were forming an attachment!”

“He asked to call on her, Fanny! He visited with us every other day for weeks. Dearest Emily and I were expecting him to pay his addresses anytime soon—I even had Gouldsmith begin drafting the settlement.”

“Oh, Harriet! Calling on a lady does not always lead to an engagement. Even a courtship does not always lead to an engagement.”

“The material point, Fanny, is that the gentleman raised my Emily’s hopes all summer, and then he vanished into the countryside without securing her affections. Only a person who disdained families of our sort—the untitled sort!—could be so thoughtless.”

“There, there, Harriet. It is for the best. Just think, had Emily married him, he would have taken her to the family’s favoured estate up north. Shropshire is quite the distance from Town!”

“But perhaps he would have taken her to the ancestral seat instead… It shall be his inheritance not too long from now, you know. Oh, can you imagine it? Lady Emily Gouldsmith Voss, Countess of Coltidge!”

As the ladies dissolved into raptures over their lost connexion to the earldom, you rolled your eyes and made your way back to Sherlock.

The detective raised an expectant brow.

“Naught of import,” you informed him. You would be having words with your brother about some things very soon, but that had nothing to do with the case.

You had barely resettled into your seat when the door swung open to welcome Lady Brindon and her typical entourage, namely her daughter Lady Rebecca Notley and the girl’s godfather Dr Crawford. You smiled at the marchioness, and though she returned the expression, she immediately bent her head towards her daughter and whispered something to her. Frowning, you turned towards Dr Crawford, but the man avoided your eyes.

“Sherlock,” you murmured, “I believe something is going on over there.”

He tilted his head to show that he accepted your opinion, but the furrow in his brow showed that he didn’t see it for himself.

“Dr Crawford does not look at me.”

“I did not take you for the vain sort, your ladyship.”

You glared at him. “You are most amusing, Mr Holmes. No, he and I are friends, for I…understand him in a way most do not.”

The teasing half smirk on Sherlock’s face plummeted. “And what, pray, is that supposed to mean?”

“He and Lady Brindon have been intimate friends since childhood,” you explained. “Their closeness did not end when she married Lord Brindon, and for that, they endure considerable idle gossip about the innocence of their friendship. I have never suspected aught improper between them—I am sure you see why: I have my own experiences as proof that a man and a woman can be friends all their lives and have naught romantic come of it—so he tends to seek me out for support, at least with his eyes, when they appear in public together.”

Sherlock scowled. “Well, if you are so certain, I shall engage him in conversation. I have met their ladyships and him at one of Mycroft’s events, so I shall have an excuse to speak with them.”

“Sherlock, do you not think that I ought to be the one who—?”

“You did the last one. It is my turn,” he snapped, rising to his feet and stalking towards the Notley party before you could pick your jaw off of the floor. What had soured his mood so?

Taking tiny, nervous bites of your Victoria sponge, you watched Sherlock stiffly bow and greet the trio. Your apprehension eased as his awkwardness did as well, evidently the conversation taking a promising turn as that gleam re-entered the detective’s eyes. But—oh, no, perhaps he had relaxed too much: you recognised the tension building in Dr Crawford’s shoulder blades, too little thus far to be noticed by Sherlock, but already glaring to you, whose acquaintance with the man was largely based on noticing when the people around him were pushing too hard.

Rather unceremoniously, you abandoned your half-eaten cake and hurried to Sherlock’s side.

“Lady Brindon,” you greeted brightly, “Lady Rebecca, Dr Crawford. Mr Holmes.”

After the exchange of curtsies and bows and how-do-you-dos, you forced out a light chuckle. “I hope I am not interrupting. Only, I realised having Dr Crawford and Mr Holmes in a conversation without a chaperone would become quite tedious quite rapidly. Your ladyships, you may be honest with me—have the gentlemen yet spoken of anything besides their work?”

Lady Brindon laughed. “Sirs, her ladyship has you both rather on the mark! They have spoken only of Dr Crawford’s house visit this morning.”

“That would not be quite so tedious if that particular patient had not been his and my mother’s topic of conversation all afternoon as well,” interjected Lady Rebecca, eliciting a sharp look from the marchioness, which went unheeded as the girl smiled rather wolfishly at you. “Indeed, I do not believe you shall be as much the saviour as you wished to be, my lady, for surely you shall wish to discuss her as well. Are you not acquainted with Ms Algar?”

You blinked, scrambling to recall everything you knew about the only Notley daughter. Though not malicious, she hungered for drama—her mother merely relished knowing what others did not want known—and felt enough entitlement to fish for it if necessary. In that case, this Ms Algar was somebody you were not expected to like.

With an angelic smile, you turned to Dr Crawford. “How is Ms Algar?”

His gaze darted between Lady Brindon, Sherlock, and the tearoom door before settling on you. “Quite well. She is quite well,” he answered. “That is, she is quite the same as the last twelve years. I…I have been her physician all this time, and I had not known you had met her, your ladyship. Indeed, I did not even know you were…connected to her, until Lady Brindon, er, informed me this afternoon.”

“Very few people do, I would say,” you hummed, ignoring the crook of Sherlock’s eyebrow.

Dr Crawford’s shoulders slumped. “I hope that means you do not think I was trying to keep this from you, my lady—”

“Nonsense!” you reassured him. “There is a reason Lady Brindon keeps your company and chose you as Lady Rebecca’s godfather, and I am certain that reason is your honesty and artlessness. Is it not so, my lady?”

The marchioness nodded with a serene smile, and even Lady Rebecca’s surly disappointment at your nonchalance lessened in the face of fondness for her godfather.

Reddening, Dr Crawford smiled at you all. “You are kindness itself,” he told you. “It is no wonder that you are friends with Ms Algar despite—” His smile broke. “That is, despite…”

“Despite circumstances,” you suggested, your heart rate spiking at the riskiness of it.

Fortunately, the smile returned. “Yes, indeed. I am sure she is uplifted to know such goodness exists after her attack.”

At that, Sherlock’s attention flew from you, where it had been this entire conversation, to the doctor. “An attack, you say? You mentioned a bump on the back of the head, but you would not tell me more…”

“Mr Holmes! Of course not!” you gasped. No wonder Dr Crawford had been tense! “That is no topic for mixed company. I apologise, your ladyships,” you added to the Notleys with a rueful smile. “It appears my jest about a chaperone had more truth to it than I intended.”

Lady Brindon waved away your concern. “It is of no consequence. Rebecca is always so eager to hear the gory details of everyone’s troubles.”

“Mama!” the young lady hissed.

“Still,” you said, “as apparent chaperone, I best ensure Mr Holmes gets home without offending any sensibilities now. It has been a pleasure—God bless you all.”

After you and Sherlock had taken leave of the trio, you returned to your table to retrieve your effects and settle your tab. Then, you set back off for Grosvenor Square.

“What were you thinking?” you reproached him, to which he paid no attention as he beamed and exclaimed—

“I do believe we are dealing with a homicide after all!”

You snuck a glance around the street and sighed in relief at its emptiness before pinching the arm he had again offered you.

“Ow! What was—?”

“We are in public, Mr Holmes,” you said, even more reproachfully. “Do lower your voice, or at least temper your enthusiastic tone, about murder?”

He grimaced. “Indeed. I suppose I should be more considerate of the fact that I am discussing your husband, too, should I not?”

“Oh.” You squeezed his arm. “To be frank, that had quite slipped my mind.”

He barked out a laugh. “I take it you are not disturbed that someone murdered your dear Edmund, then?”

“Not particularly. Perhaps the disturbance shall set in later. For now, I am simply curious. What has made you certain?”

“Ms Algar was attacked and struck on the back of the head.”

You waited a beat. “Yes?”

“Twelve years ago!”

You sighed. “I recognise that Mr Sulyard died twelve years ago, but—”

“Died from an attack to the back of the head,” cut in Sherlock, his voice lowering in volume but growing in fervour.

“I was told he died from trying to drive a phaeton while drunk at an ungodly hour.” You recalled serving tea to the messenger before he broke the news, that poor awkward officer whose eyes would not meet yours but whose face you would never forget.

Sherlock’s incredulous cry broke your reverie: “Did you not read the same coroner’s report as I?”

“I know not,” you said with an eye roll, “for you are the one who put it in my hands.”

You smothered a grin at his grumbles about your contemptible sass.

“The coroner noted that Mr Sulyard had only sustained a severe bump to the head and the bruising where he landed,” said Sherlock with a surprising amount of patience. “Normally, in a carriage crash, one receives defensive and reflexive injuries from reacting to the incident before hitting the ground, not merely the injuries of impact. The coroner conjectured that Mr Sulyard was different because he was intoxicated and his reactions would have been impaired.”

Thinking back on the few times you had observed drunken behaviour, you nodded: you had not understood much of the coroner’s report, but Sherlock’s explanation made sense so far.

“And yet,” he whispered, “the actual toxicology report showed that Mr Sulyard had not a drop of alcohol in his body.”

“What? But then…” You shook your head. “How could the coroner have missed such an inconsistency?”

“Warwick is a frumpish fellow simply waiting to be forced into retirement,” mused Sherlock. “He must have written off the toxicology result as the blunder of a nascent science.”

You shook your head again, wrestling with all the puzzle pieces that refused to fit in place. “You must have arrived at that conclusion yesterday, as soon as you read the report,” you said. “Why are you only certain of homicide now?”

“The inconsistency was suspicious, yes, but one must have an alternative explanation before ‘suspicious’ becomes ‘damning’,” he replied. “Ms Algar is that alternative explanation. Or, rather, she is a piece of it… Struck in the head with a blunt object, just as Mr Sulyard was… Her incident, at the same time as his… And of course, their prior connection.”

He glanced at you, and you pursed your lips before exhaling forcibly.

“Worry not, Sherlock. I have already figured out that Ms Algar was my husband’s lover; you shall not have to spell out that to me as well.”

No, Lady Brindon’s whispers and looks, Lady Rebecca’s goading, and Dr Crawford’s discomfort had spelled it out quite effectively already.

Sherlock offered you a tentative smile. “I was not worried about that,” he said. “You handled yourself with complete aplomb there. The way you directed that conversation without anyone—well, anyone other than me, of course—realising that you were directing… I am most impressed by your deductive ability, my lady.”

“Deductive—? Sherlock, that is not deduction,” you scoffed. Identifying Ms Algar as your husband’s mistress, perhaps, but leading a conversation? “It is… It is…”

“You would not call it guesswork, would you?”

“Not at all!”

He hummed. “No, indeed, you do not guess: you calculate the path by which you shall avoid offence and curry favour without compromising your dignity. You balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.”

You rolled your eyes; well, his flair for the dramatic had certainly not flagged in the years gone. “It is social manoeuvring, that is all, Sherlock.”

“You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles. And, my dear lady,” he quipped, “there is nothing more trifling than social manoeuvring.”

Considering how he had so easily gone from being playful with you in the tearoom to snapping at you about talking with Dr Crawford to reassuring you while walking you home, you could not but agree.

Thank you for reading. Please let me know if you would like to be tagged for updates. :) This has probably been my favourite prompt to research for so far; the history of tearooms in Britain is fascinating! I really thought this was gonna be my shortest chapter yet and then it ended up being the longest by a thousand words… Well, feedback is always welcome! A cookie to anyone who can point out all the Arthur Conan Doyle references. ;P

#sherlock holmes x reader #sherlock holmes x you #henry cavill sherlock x reader #jealous sherlock holmes #henry cavill fanfiction #enola holmes #a galling yoke #x reader #the dimensions of fandom

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the-name-is-z · 9 months ago

Text

SKELETONS | ch. 40

daryl dixon x f!oc

masterlist

a03 link

Summary: As the prison becomes overrun by walkers, Iris, Daryl and Beth are separated from the other survivors. Warnings/Information: AMC's The Walking Dead OC Insert | 18+ Advised | strangers to lovers; the slowest of slow burns; gore; angst; horror; humour; m/f; hopelessness; eating snakes; arguments; discussions of the others' survival; sleeping in the trunk of a car

Chapter 40 - Pieces

Peace was disrupted so easily. One breath, one word, one step. But what was peace? Did the definition change depending on the situation? Or was it simply the absence of anything? The forest was once peaceful. Their lives were… at some times peaceful. It had been a long time since Iris felt peaceful.

Her heard thundered as they ran through the woods. The walkers didn’t stop. They didn’t slow. They were always moving. So they were always moving too. They were out of bullets, Daryl had to step to get every bolt he fired from the crossbow. They spoke little. Daryl was a man of few words regardless, but the three of them didn’t need words when they needed to tell one another to run. They didn’t need words when they needed to tell one another to drop to the ground and wait the swarm out in the tall grass.

Their chests rose and fell with heavy breath, tight grips on their weapons, on their will. Daryl had passed into survival mode, every thought, every notion revolving around keeping themselves alive for the foreseeable future. Though what future they could see was clouded and short. Beth was quiet, unable to grieve. Iris was still struggling to recover from the illness. Adrenaline could only get you so far. Reckless expenditure of energy was not an ideal way to heal. She was more exhausted every day.

When the herd passed, Daryl made a fire at the tree line, the three of them surrounding it with their knees hugged to their chests.

“We should do something.” Beth said softly. They didn’t reply. “We should do something.” Daryl looked up at her in question. “Do what?” Iris asked, stifling a yawn.

“We aren’t the only survivors.” Beth stated surely. “We can’t be. Rick, Michonne, they could be out here. Maggie and Glenn could have made it out of A block.” Daryl looked back down at the fire. “They could’ve.”

“Beth—“ Iris started slowly.

“No. They could have survived. I’m sure of it.” She repeated. She looked to Daryl, shooting to her feet. “You’re a tracker. You can track. Come on, the sun will be up soon. If we head out now, we can—” She stopped suddenly when they made no effort to move. “Fine! If you won’t track, I will.” She stomped over, grabbed Daryl’s hunting knife from where he’d stabbed it into the ground and walked off into the woods.

Iris looked over to Daryl, who was still staring into the fire. Beth might have been a little naïve at times, but she wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t really run off by herself. But she also knew that Daryl and Iris would never let her go off by herself. Damn. The two of them stood up, Daryl stomping out the fire while Iris grabbed their weapons.

They easily caught up to Beth, who happened to be waiting for them in the forest. They made good time by sunrise, Daryl keeping his eyes glued to the ground for tracks while Iris kept her head up. He paused after about an hour of walking, finding a particularly deep boot-print in the mud. He blew the leaves out of the way.

“Could be Luke’s. Or Molly’s.” Beth suggested, peering over his shoulder. “Whoever they are, it means they’re alive.” Iris raised an eyebrow.

“No. This means they were alive four or five hours ago.” Daryl replied lowly. Beth scoffed, storming away.

“They’re alive.” She assured, brushing past Iris to waltz off alone in a random direction.

“This way.” Iris called, pointing and correcting her direction. Daryl shook his head as he stood up, the two of them trailing after her like two grouchy parents following their kid at an amusement park. Beth found a trail of footprints down a mud path, following it directly and screwing up all the prints. Iris sighed.

“They picked up the pace right here.” Daryl murmured, pointing down at a few half eaten grapes on the ground. Some of them were squished. “Got out in a hurry. Things went bad.”

“Wouldn’t kill you to have a little faith.” Beth chastised. Iris snorted.

“Yeah, faith. Faith ain’t done shit for us. Sure as hell didn’t do nothing for your father.” Daryl grumbled. Iris stopped, pausing to smack him in the arm. He turned to her, then looked over at Beth who had tears in her eyes. He looked down apologetically as she turned her back. Iris watched as she started picking berries off of the nearest bush.

“They’ll be hungry when we find them.” She murmured after a moment. Iris nodded.

“Good thinking.” She agreed softly, handing over her bandana to hold the fruit in. Daryl watched the two of them for a moment before sighing, heading off down the trail. Up ahead there was a pair of dead walkers in the road, leaves on bushes nearby spattered with blood.

“What?” Beth asked as Daryl thumbed the leaves.

“Ain’t walker blood.” He stated.

“The trail keeps going.” Beth shrugged, carrying on and stepping over the walkers. “They fought them off.” Iris looked down at the blood.

“How old?” She asked. Daryl shrugged.

“Couple hours, at least.” He replied. She nodded. “Got walker tracks all up and down here. At least a dozen of them.” A twig snapped in the distance, Beth whipping out her knife in fear. She cried out as a walker fell out of the brush behind her, tackling her to the ground. She wrestled with it, gasping as Daryl wrenched the dead motherfucker off of her, pinning him to the ground with a particularly long knife that Iris didn’t even see him take from her belt. “Come on.” He urged.

Iris had a frown on her face for the next twenty minutes, and Daryl finally huffed, stopping in his tracks.

“I’ll clean it.” He stated.

“You had better.” Iris hissed, narrowing her eyes. He rolled his in response, and she ignored him, walking faster to catch up with the one who didn’t steal her weaponry. They emerged from the brush a while later to find a set of train tracks splitting the woods in two. It was clear as far as they could see, but one step closer revealed a group of survivors laid in a ditch nearby, walkers feasting on their remains.

They killed the walkers, getting close enough to inspect the survivors. It was no one they knew, but Beth still stared down at them as if they were family. The tears started to roll down her face, and soft cries turned into gasping sobs as she crouched at their side.

They followed the tracks for about a mile before the sun started to set, and Daryl led them a little ways into the forest for some cover before building another fire. Beth had a small notebook with her that she had slowly been using up for kindling, each page she ripped out scrawled front and back with swirly blue ink. At the beginning of the notebook, Iris had spied Beth’s handwriting from her childhood, the i’s dotted with hearts before she turned all cynical. Well, as cynical as Beth could be.

They spent days wandering randomly in the damn forest. They were sweaty, dirty, tired. Iris was fully recovered from her illness, but she had remained just as irritable as she had been when she was sick. They burst through the trees, scratched by rogue branches, thickets and thistles. They couldn’t see shit. Or at least, Iris and Beth couldn’t see shit. Iris had whispered to Beth the night before that she was starting to suspect Daryl was part opossum, as he had absolutely no trouble navigating the woods in the dead of night.

Daryl waved Beth forward as they reached a road, an old, run down car sitting in its misery, never to be started again. Iris sat down in the driver’s seat and tried anyways, to no avail. Daryl was watching the tree line for walkers. The tension was high as thunder boomed overhead, the snarls of a herd in the distance. This was to be their shelter for the evening. With the doors in shambles, Daryl waved both girls over, hurrying them into the trunk of the car. He did a quick sweep before climbing in after them, mostly shutting the trunk over their heads and tying it with a strip of fabric.

It was cramped, to say the least, but it was what they had. They could hear the soft growls and rasping of walkers as the herd moved past, the three of them holding their breath as much as they could, deathly still. But it got worse.

The thunder got louder, the sound of rain soon pelting the trunk, a few drops of water leaking through here and there. The walkers were louder too. Beth had her eyes squeezed shut, and Iris held her hand tight, Beth’s grip tightening at every thunderclap. There was no way any of them could sleep. The car itself shook in the wind, walkers slamming into it every so often. Iris’ eyes were wide open, though she didn’t have much of a view.

Daryl had positioned himself at the edge, his eye lined up with the slim gap between the metal. He had his crossbow in hand, prepared, though Iris noted the tremor in his hands, the tap in his foot and the nervous flicking of his eyes back and forth. She couldn’t blame him. She was shaking too.

It was hours before the noise died down a little, and adrenaline was still the only thing keeping them running. It was quieter though, which helped. Iris looked over to Daryl and he held up his hand, as if to say, soon. The sun had long risen by the time he deemed it safe enough to open the trunk. Birds were chirping in the distance, and Beth was twitching. She started to untie the fabric, pushing the trunk open to reveal the empty road and hot blazing sun.

They scavenged what they could from the car, including the hubcaps, old plastic bottles and broken glass, before starting off down the highway again. They made camp, Daryl shrugging off to go scrounge up something for them to eat while Beth started a fire.

She dug a hole in the dirt, putting the driest wood she could find inside. She used the car’s side mirror and a piece of glass from the headlight to angle a beam of light into the hole, the wood smoking. Iris set up the hubcaps and other pieces of metal along a rope around their camp as an alarm system. Daryl soon returned with a dead snake, skinning it and cooking it over the fire for them to eat. While it was definitely the most redneck meal she’d ever had in her life, Iris was grateful for the sustenance nonetheless.

“I need a drink.” Beth decided suddenly. Daryl answered by chucking a plastic bottle they’d filled with relatively clean water in her direction. “No, I mean a real drink. As in alcohol.” Daryl didn’t say much, still chin deep in his large chunk of snake meat. Iris was laid back against a wooden log, her arms behind her head.

“I got three tequila sunrises on the way, toots.” Iris replied. She had a flash of memory, the bartender at the old biker bar, Stu, used to call her toots. He used to have her run drinks for him until she was old enough to realize she was doing labour for free.

“I’ve never had one.” Beth stated, ignoring her sarcastic reply. “”Cause of my dad… but he’s not exactly around anymore, so… I thought we could go find some.” There was a long pause, and Iris opened one eye to find Daryl still scarfing down snake. Beth was watching him expectantly, waiting for an answer. He didn’t give one. “Okay, well… enjoy your snake jerky.” She stood, plucking her knife from a nearby log before trudging off into the woods. Presumably to find somewhere to use the bathroom.

They waited in silence, Daryl still enjoying his meal before the sound of a walker snarl interrupted them. They were both on their feet in seconds, silently creeping through the trees after Beth. They saw her standing behind a tree, clutching her knife as a walker drew nearer to her, the rest of them going to investigate another noise. They waited, but the walker turned back, joining the group once more. Beth jumped as she turned, seeing the two of them there watching her.

The way back to camp was easy to find and recognizable, but Beth was not paying attention. She was going on about something, the first drink she ever wanted to try, whatever. She looked around.

“This isn’t the right way. I think we gotta go that way to find the booze.” She stated, pointing vaguely in the opposite direction. Daryl looked back at her with a frown as he stepped over the hubcap rope, the noise jangling loudly. “What the hell? You brought me back!” She accused.

“Beth—“ Iris started, reaching toward her, but Beth slapped her hand away.

“I’m not staying in this suck-ass camp!” Beth snapped, flipping them both off aggressively.

“Oh, I’m not old enough to be bitched at by angsty teenagers.” Iris groaned to no one in particular, rubbing her hands down her face. Beth whipped around to leave, but Daryl caught her by the wrist.

“Hey! You had your fun.” He grumbled.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Beth cried, staring him down as she ripped from his grip. “Do you feel anything? Yeah, you think everything’s screwed. I guess that’s a feeling. So you want to spend the rest of our lives staring into a fire and eating mud snakes? Screw that! We might as well do something. I can take care of myself, and I’m gonna get a damn drink.”

They let her storm off again, Daryl looking back defeatedly at their shameful little camp. He looked back to meet Iris’ gaze.

“I could go for a drink.” She muttered. He paused, sucking on a tooth before nodding, the pair trailing after Beth.

TAGLIST:

@heidiland05

@ryoujoking

@catlalice

@maxinehufflepuffprincess

@lowkeyhottho

@fadingpalacebonkpsychic

#thenameisz #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x original character #skeletons #the walking dead #the walking dead daryl dixon #twd daryl #twd daryl dixon #daryl dixon x oc

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 3 months ago

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Lula’s message to Brazilian Congress aims to dispel notion of lax fiscal policy

President seeks to confront disappointment with package presented last November

Amid the crisis over congressional earmarks to the budget, President Lula has sent a message to the National Congress stating he will not hesitate to implement spending freezes and budgetary contingencies this year to achieve the zero deficit target, a “crucial” step toward stabilizing the public debt at around 80% of the GDP by 2028.

The message is part of the presidential communication delivered to the National Congress at the start of the legislative year.

In an effort to rebuild credibility in fiscal policy, the text cites examples of stringent measures taken to adjust public finances.

One example is the 2025 Annual Budget Bill (PLOA), currently under review in the National Congress. Projections indicated a 3.6% increase in expenditures. However, following the framework rule, this expansion was limited to 2.5% in the proposal.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #economy #luiz inacio lula da silva #image description in alt #mod nise da silveira

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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You cannot understand the failure of Conservative rule unless you accept that we are living with the failure of honestly held Conservative beliefs. The UK is in crisis, not because Tories are criminals or charlatans or fools, although they can be all of these things, but because they tried to govern according to their sincerely held beliefs and sent us into a deep crisis.

I accept that this is a hard concession for the government’s opponents to make. They like to think of Conservatives as crooks. And they are right in part. The Tory administration from 2010 to the present, which offers peerages for £3 million to passing bidders, has been the most corrupt government of the modern era.

Why, then, pay these crooks the courtesy of taking them seriously?

Meanwhile, those of us brought up in the British class system have a second reason for refusing to offer Conservatives the smallest mercy.

David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, and, for a while, their Liberal sidekick Nick Clegg, fit our resentful image of dilettantish public-school boys: foppish wreckers, who do not care about the damage they inflict as long as they can stay at the top of the heap.

I have lost count of the number of times anti-Tory columnists have reached for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lines from the Great Gatsby to describe our rulers.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

There is a terrific piece in the current edition of the New Yorker on fin de regime UK by Sam Knight. Without endorsing the notion that we have been ruined by dilettantes, his interviewees provide plenty of evidence to support it.

“It’s all about constantly drawing dividing lines,” a former Conservative party strategist told him. “That’s all you need. It’s not about big ideological debates or policies or anything.”

“He is not a Brexiteer,” George Osborne said of Boris Johnson. “I really would go to my grave saying, deep down, Boris Johnson did not want to leave the E.U”.

Knight himself, while never losing sight of the suffering austerity brought, says that the best way to think about the ruling politics of the past 14 years is to see it as a “psychodrama enacted, for the most part, by a small group of middle-aged men who went to élite private schools, studied at the University of Oxford, and have been climbing and chucking one another off the ladder of British public life” ever since.

Clearly, there is truth in this. But we will not save the country merely by replacing upper-class chancers with middle-class moralists.

However satisfying a rhetorical tactic, dismissing you opponents as liars and crooks misses that they can be far more dangerous when they are wholly in earnest. As the Conservatives were when they were at their most destructive.

The damage austerity caused to schools, local authorities, the criminal justice system and national defence (a subject, incidentally, we should worry more about given Russia’s aggression) flowed from the authentic Conservative belief that lower rates of taxation produced economic growth.

There is a strong link between Liz Truss and George Osborne.

The 2010 Cameron government cold-bloodedly refused to take advantage of a once-in-300-years opportunity to borrow to invest in infrastructure at next-to-zero interest rates.

Instead, it paid off the debt accrued in the finance crisis by cutting public expenditure rather than raising taxes.

Do not underestimate the extremism that followed.

The Office for Budget Responsibility said of the period up to 2018

“In the 12 years from the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2007-08 the UK public finances will have suffered their largest peacetime shock in living memory, followed – on current policy – by one of the biggest deficit reduction programmes seen in any advanced economy since World War II.”

From Osborne to Truss, Conservatives genuinely believed that low taxes would produce economic growth, and they have never had a programme to turn to when their strategy failed.

As we can now see.

Knight cites some horrendous figures.

Between 2010 and 2018, funding for police forces in England fell by up to a quarter. Officers stopped investigating burglaries. Only four per cent now end in prosecution. In 2021, the median time between a rape offense and the completion of a trial reached more than two and a half years. In 2023, hundreds of school buildings had to be closed for emergency repairs, because the country’s school-construction budget had been cut by forty-six per cent between 2009 and 2022.

I could go on. But the point worth noticing is that at all times between 2010 and 2016 Osborne’s austerity programme had the full support of the Tory press, Tory donors and Tory MPs, and many of them went on to support Liz Truss in 2022.

There is an effort underway to rewrite the Conservatives' time in power. The period from 2010 to 2016 is presented as an era of moderate conservatism ruined by the aberrations of Johnson and Truss. In truth, the continuity is more striking than the change.

The result of 14-years of Conservative rule is the wrecking of the public sector combined with the highest taxes the UK has experienced since 1945.

As policy wonks now joke in their rip-roaring way, the British used to want American levels of taxes and European levels of public service. Now they have American levels of public service with European levels of tax.

The fiscal room for manoeuvre of the next Labour government has already been curtailed. It will not have pots of money to bail out local authorities, universities and the court system, to pick just three of the many deserving cases.

It will have to encourage growth

Economically, the quickest way to do it is to rejoin the EU. But politically it is a nightmare, I agree with George Osborne that Boris Johnson didn’t believe in Brexit. I wrote in 2016 that going with the Brexit campaign was the smart move for a charlatan on the make.

But fascinating though the speculations about the court politics of the 2010s are, they have no relevance to the urgent need to halt the UK’s decline by rejoining the EU.

We can’t because of the tyranny of the anti-European minority, which unlike Boris Johnson, has an authentic belief in Brexit.

Indeed, so great is the minority’s power, British politics does not even talk about Brexit. It is as if, as George Osborne says, we are in the old Soviet Union and essential questions cannot be debated for fear of offending the ruling ideology.

Most people now regard Brexit as a mistake. But then there are the Brexit diehards, who so resemble 20th century communists when they insist that Brexit has not failed, but simply has not been properly tried yet. Beyond them, are those who think that Brexit went fine, or who don’t want to reopen the question, or don’t care about our economic fortunes.

Under our electoral system, a dedicated minority can have real power. The majority of Labour voters support rejoining the EU, but they will vote Labour whatever European policy the party puts forward. A minority of pro-Brexit voters may even now turn away from Labour if it supports Europe, however, and lose them seats in the north of England. (Or at least that is what the party believes.)

Labour politicians feel they must wait until an overwhelming majority of the population realise that Brexit was a monumental blunder.

If only the Tories had just been a bunch of crooks. They would have stolen some money but that would have been the end of it.

As it is, it will take us years to recover from their sincerely held beliefs. Assuming, that is, we recover at all.

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irlactualhuman · 7 months ago

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There's a phenomenon in meeting or interacting with potential partners (usually men) on the dating scene that occurs roughly sometime far in advance of when I'd care for it to be addressed. And it sucks and I hate it, is the thing.

It's the point at which the conversation or the vibe and intent from the other party turns to sex. You can always tell. It's almost textile- like the NPC marker above their head changes from a chill green to a warning yellow.

Normally, I'm into this change. Are we hitting it off? Are we getting closer? Did I make this move? Have you been generally feeling good about our conversation thus far? Hell yeah! Lets talk sex. It's one of my favorite things.

The ISSUE that I have is that- we'll call it roughly 60% of the time, and I guess lie because it's probably more like 85%- these conversations (again, usually with men) lack questions. They don't ask. They presume knowledge of my innermost fantasies.

The thing that really squicks me is that they assume they know what I like or want vis my Estrogen Blasting Rod. I can assure you with frustrated conviction that they have never- NOT EVEN FUCKING ONCE- been correct.

No, honey, YOU want that, but you're phrasing it to sound like I said it.

You brought it up before I even had an opportunity to share with you my fantasies. And they certainly don't revolve around infantalizing my Vestigial Unicorn Horn, nor do they even feature it prominently.

There are plenty of ways we can involve the Staff of the Meat Wizard, but I assure you that it won't be party to a dick-based power fantasy on your part. I can confidently assure you of it's general neutrality and vague disapproval at your notions of manhood and apparent need to tame me via swordplay.

My identity and personality does not, in fact, reside below my belt.

Also I can kill you with my thumb and minimal calorie expenditure. Get bent. Rant over.

#leaposting #dating #long post #ugh

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hyperlexichypatia · 10 months ago

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In your recent post about conservative talking points circulating in leftist spaces you mentioned the idea that "growing your own food is possible desirous and virtuous" I'm curious about this as a physically disabled person who grew up in a local agriculture heavy area, going to farmers markets and coops and the like with people who pushed this viewpoint HEAVILY, and now seeing (as a low-income disabled adult) how incredibly financially, physically, and time-exhaustive this way of life is for even having a few animals or just a garden, and how inaccessible this is to folks living in less rural areas this is for like everyone around me wondering if you'd be willing to discuss this more and the implications of it, maybe including the harm that it does? (I hope I'm not coming across as judgy or demanding here, I'm actually so happy to hear someone challenge this notion for the first time in my life)

Not judgey or demanding at all! Also, this reply got deleted three times while I was writing it, because my touchpad is borked, so apologies for any incoherence or missed proofreading or typos or general bad writing.

So the main problems with "grow your own food" ideology are related to the economy of scale. It's just much, much more efficient to have a few large farms with large farming equipment producing large quantities of crops than for each household to produce enough food to support itself, or even for every neighborhood/community/village to produce enough food to support itself. The shift from small to large scale farming has led to vast increases in crop output.

Of course, there are a lot of problems with large-scale farming as it is currently practiced. Workers are underpaid, overworked, often in horrible conditions. Equipment and pesticides and chemicals pollute. Shipping the products around the world takes fuel and carbon emissions. Farm animal living conditions are horrific. I'm not at all trying to deny or minimize the problems with large-scale industrial farming as it currently exists. But that does not mean that complete decentralization is a viable solution. On the contrary, fewer, larger farms can be more sustainable than more, smaller ones.

We definitely need some decentralization of farming, to reduce the energy expenditure of global crop shipping. A sustainable global food strategy has to include both large farms and small farms. But that is a far, far cry from complete decentralization to the household level or even the neighborhood/community level.

But I'm not an expert on agricultural policy. Frankly I don't know much about it at all. So I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about what I do know about: Food-moralizing culture. Because food-moralizing culture, not genuine well-meaning concern for the environment or farmhand working conditions, is the underpinning of "grow your own food" culture.

I say this because while there are environmental and labor problems with every industrial production of every necessary good, radical decentralization to the household level is not a widespread proposed solution (outside of like, fringe anarcho-primitivist subcultures) to other forms of problematic industrial production.

Like, industrial clothing production is atrocious! It needs to be radically changed! And almost everyone involved in advocacy for this necessary change is advocating different, better kinds of clothing factories. More worker control, fewer dangerous chemicals, more durable goods. With relatively few exceptions, most advocates are not advocating "Every individual household, all around the world, should spin, weave, and sew their own clothing."

The actual literal Luddites did not advocate that. Their entire position was rooted in being specialized, skilled craftspeople in a society that already had specialization of labor!

(I realize that I am saying this on Tumblr, The Home Of Fringe Craftspeople [at least it's not Instagram], and should this post break containment, I will get a lot of responses of "Well actually my friends and I all spin our own wool" -- great, I love that for you! Sincerely, I hope everyone gets to practice the art/craft/creativity/etc that brings them joy! That's a niche hobby, not a large scale political movement actively opposed to food justice and disability justice the way the grow-your-own-food movement is.)

You don't see large-scale political movements for "Everyone should forge their own iron" or "Everyone should carve their own wood" or "Everyone should lay their own bricks." And these things would even be technically more feasible than "Everyone should grow their own food," because they're not reliant on things like weather and soil conditions, or quantities of land. You see some smaller scale things like the "maker movement" or "nobility of working with your hands," but they're as likely to be focused on repair and other kinds of manual labor than on completely individualized generation of product from scratch.

So why are we relentlessly propagandized to all grow our own food? Well, according to me, because of food-moralizing culture. The belief that there are virtuous food and unvirtuous foods, and virtuous and unvirtuous ways of eating. That there's some kind of moral virtue in laboring and suffering for your food, and that the purest virtue is in enjoying that suffering. This is where the ableism is a feature, not a bug. Advocates will openly say that their movement doesn't have to be disability-inclusive, because the point is that if everyone "grew their own food" and ate a "natural healthy diet," no one would be disabled.

I would at least respect the movement a little more if advocates framed it as a sacrifice, like "For the greater good, everyone must take up agriculture," instead of pretending that we're all supposed to enjoy it.

I would also respect it a little more if most of the people who advocated it actually did grow most of their own food. Farmers at least, as self-righteous about Agrarian Virtue as they can be, are doing actual food-growing work, and actually are aware of the intense difficulty and commitment involved in doing it. But most of the people -- at least from my anecdotal observation -- who promote and brag about "growing their own food" absolutely do not grow their own food. They supplement their groceries with some homegrown fare. Which is fine. But it is not agricultural self-sufficiency, by a long shot. They also, by and large, aren't saving any money by doing so. Which is also fine. What's not fine is using your hobby as an excuse to deny material resources to people who need them.

Like, in my analogy of a large-scale movement of an everyone-should-make-their-own-clothes-from-scratch movement, they would be the equivalent of people screaming about how no one should have access to off-the-rack clothes, they should make their own clothes from scratch, like we do! And then what most of the people saying that mean is that they buy off-the-rack clothes and attach their own buttons. You're not really doing it either.

And the thing is, I'm glad that some people truly enjoy agricultural labor! I wish agriculture were more accessible as a career to anyone who wanted to do it! Not only because I want everyone to be able to do the kind of work they enjoy, but, purely selfishly, I do need to eat food, so someone needs to grow it!

If we all want an economic system without exploitation or coercion, while still ensuring that all the necessary work still gets done, we have to actively support everyone's desire to contribute to society in whatever way best suits them! The world needs farmers, and the world also needs plumbers, electricians, teachers, writers, and lots of other jobs! But that requires being part of a society. It requires division and specialization of labor.

This answer is entirely too long. I'm sorry about that. I have a lot of feelings about how much I hate Food Culture.

#food justice #healthism #ableism #asks #send asks

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