#libertarian joke paper | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

welcometomy20s · 2 years

Text

December 20, 2022

Noah Smith has been one of my searchlights, with the occasional annoying glares that I need to squint my eyes to recover, so when a wayward post from him arrived at my feed, I decided to take a look and write a response.

Noah Smith starts with the premise that we do not like hanging around with other people and we want to find our people, and eventually the consolidation rubs against this frustration with other people and society breaks apart.

I think I would tut first at the premise that ‘The Internet wants to be fragmented’… I think it’s more appropriate to say the internet is going through a state of fragmentation, and soon after it will consolidate again. As Noah pointed out above, you want to be with other perspectives when you are ready, and so society will experience coming apart and bringing together. In the 90’s, people of different subcultures gathered around and developed their fields, in the 00’s, those people were ready to present, in the 10’s people argued over the harmony of these pieces until we got sick of each other (in this case, quite literally) and ‘20s, we return to develop our subcultures again.

Next point of contention is about community moderation and one of the responses.

Biggest difference between 4chan and Tumblr is its structure. 4chan actually has a nice structure, the structure it has inherited from the days of BBS/Usenet. This actually has a good distinction of siloing nonsense into specific forums. If you don’t like nonsense, you just don’t have to visit a specific sub. Forums are gated to a certain extent that there aren’t many spillovers. I never have the guts to visit the site, but I heard smaller forums on the site were actually decent, and Reddit gives a cleaner, if a bit vague, experience of this forum structure. In fact, Reddit is a nice mid-way point between the two.

Tumblr’s motto is ‘hyper-individualization’. Think about the gender jokes that Conservative give, what are they mocking? Ultimately, they are mocking the hyper-individualization that is the core of Tumblr. Tumblr has decentralized nested structures, kind of like Tiktok to a certain extent, which means wonderful and terrible rabbit holes of all kinds exist in these two sites. Reddit also exhibits some of this.

In some sense, this Tumblr-Reddit-4chan dynamic echoes the earlier dynamics of MSNBC-CNN-Fox News. The comment about 4chan being room full of smart people pretending to be dumb and Reddit being room full of dumb people pretending to be smart seems nicely echoed with CNN and Fox News. Fox News has an overriding agenda, it’s a proud propaganda machine, lies they spout have a direction and feeling. Jim Watkins is certainly Millennial’s Roger Ailes, largely working behind the scene, creating mythos that serves to further their interest in collapsing the society.

To clarify what I mean by ‘collapsing the society’, I like to examine Thatcher’s famous phrase, ‘there is no such thing as society’. Now Thatcher looks like she’s leaning to how Tumblr does things, but the intent behind the statement presents a different society. Thatcher still believes in The State, but she doesn’t like the thing between people and the state. 4chan people are ‘libertarians’. They want a small government, but that by itself doesn’t really mean anything. 4chan people want a small group of people ruling over the population as a whole, instead of trying to placate factions. Of course, trying to do that is very aggravating and one is forced to create these in-between states, or fear actual collapse of society… which is the heart of the contradiction.

Tumblr people are anti-libertarians though, far from it, they are anarchists. They do not want a State at all. The State is to be replaced by paper mache infrastructure, just a series of vibes and nods that keeps a basic function of society. Most other people rightly see this as a bunch of nonsense, way too optimistic to the point of delusion.

In a way, there’s a horseshoe nature to this. Note how both sides have a complicated relationship with children and interactions with them.

I wrote above that ‘you can leave the forum’, but that’s not what happens, isn’t it? Some don't want to leave and to echo the commenter’s point, human spite is the most powerful motivator that is available to humans.

Moderation is seen as a ‘labor of love’, but I think it would be better seen as a ‘labor of valor’. You moderate because you want a better world, you love the community, yes, but there is a sense of duty that goes beyond that - if I’m not here, then the world I love is going to disappear. In some sense, it’s a volunteer army model, or perhaps doctors.

#web talk #society #rambles

0 notes

murdochccm · 5 years

Text

The West’s Eleutheromania & How Its Governments [AKA Managerial Capitalists] Made Its Citizens Accessories to Economic Hegemony With No Holds Barred

Assignment Question: According to Hickel, what is the "myth" of development that began with Harry Truman? What makes this "myth" so compelling? What is wrong with this myth (i.e. the flawed assumptions)?

Truncated Answers -

According to Hickel, what is the "myth" of development that began with Harry Truman?

What makes this "myth" so compelling?

The myth is so compelling because it propagandistically reframes developing nations as nations desperately needing to imitate the systems of the West and the West should help in doing so.

What is wrong with this myth (i.e. the flawed assumptions)?

The flawed assumption is that free markets are the best solution for a struggling economy and that foreign intervention is necessary to create these free markets.

Attempt I

The myth of development that began with Harry Truman was a claim that without US industrial, and scientific techniques foreign “developing nations” were to suffer. The most insidious part of Harry Truman's myth about these “underdeveloped areas” was that their economic life was to be stagnant without US intervention. Thence this leads to a string of US inference into the foreign economic policy (interference meant to prop up an unbalanced free-market system tailored to fit US needs). The notable mental part of Harry Truman's “perception management” was how smug, trusting of their authority, or chock full of some sort of messiah complex the citizens of the United States of America must have been to have bought the idea; that inferring with foreign economic matters was noble. Without implying a negative value judgment, I suppose that this could’ve been the result of hyper-normalization where people didn’t know any alternative to the actions suggested by their government. Perhaps Americans were akin to “a frog gently placed into a pot of tepid water with the heat on low, floating quite placidly [i.e. Americans (?and the West?) were originally accustomed to mild economic interventionism with FDR]. As the water gradually heated up [with World War II Americans & the West became accustomed to fighting for freedom in foreign wars], the frog [the West] sank into a tranquil stupor, [were full-on hypernormalized], and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death [Americans and the West began to blindly ride movements such as the Red Scare].

With a historical precedent of colonialism, tribalism, and empires it seems Harry Truman was easily able to redirect the west’s former squabbles over resources [See: The US “invading and occupying states like Honduras, Cuba and the Domincian Republic] ; with seemingly eleemosynary [charitable] yet vague statements positioning the West as superior saviors.

What is wrong with this myth, well, without proof of deep-seated imperfection Harry Truman made claims that “developing nations” were in such an impoverished state based off of a seemingly unrelated comparison to the United States of America’s accolades. Justifying the US United States of America must intervene. Leaving how the United States of America should intervention with vague language. With this flexiloquent [pertaining to someone who speaks ambiguously] language, Harry Truman was able to continue his virtue signaling narrative that precluded much democratic oversight from the American people; whilst, maintaining glowing approval from the press.

Harry Truman claimed that half the people in the world are living in conditions approaching misery and with America’s significant scientific and technological advantages. The USA was in a responsible position and thus should act to development foreign nations so that to mirror the US’s success. His statement on global inequality based on a half-truth lead to the West’s battle on “developmental policies” that “were threatening their access to cheap labor, raw materials, and consumer markets across the South, eroding the foundations of the world system that they had come to rely on during the colonial era. Unwilling to let this continue, they intervened across the South to depose democratically elected leaders and replace them with regimes—generally dictatorships—that would be more amenable to Western interests. As Noel Maurer points out in The Empire Trap (Princeton, 2013), these interventions were typically triggered when Western assets were put at risk by land reform, nationalization, or capital controls. `` Thenceforth to maintain western interests and under the guise of liberal internationalism, the West would act as creditors; giving out loans with exorbitant interest rates thanks to their unequal bargaining power. This amid heaps of other reverse aid tomfooleries with the development of these developing countries leads to true stagnation in the development of these developing countries are in so much need of the West’s putative superiority.

The West with its conservatism that has a great desire to avoid risk when lending money in the hopes of making interest on such loans. Would fight folks policies not mirroring that of their own. Helping folks abroad is easy to sell to a populace, but regime change wars are not. Thus in a coded language, Harry Truman used diversionary tactics and whataboutism to avert his citizenry gaze from the true violence of America’s desire to access weaker nations’ resources ad libitum. I imagine that Harry Truman stipulated that his citizenry would refrain from questioning his policies on how to better these “developing nations” as long as it was benefiting them. Although, it may have been the case that all these altercations with opposing ideoogies where to avert people attention away from domestic problems (I’m not sure though, because I’m totally out of the loop when it comes to history). This likely lead to the hyper-normalization of regime change wars under the guise to prevent the spread of communism and other putative dangerous ideologies. Methinks that even with western inventions becoming more and more excessive. As long as the government keeps the military voluntarily and there is little inflation of prices for example the people living in the country wouldn’t protest much. Making it easy for a government to continue it’s reverse aid whatnot. “Perhaps it is easier for folks to put up with the discomfort of others rather than their own.[Paraphrased Russell Brand Quote Thingo]”

I presume that the West was attempting a new form of colonialism where all nations would mirror each other economically. Perhaps forming some sort of worldly single-market economy. Where the West and its transnational super political organizations would foist economic conformity on these developing nations. Thus eschewing economic instability and maintaining the status quo; where they could easily dominate the world economy with their large market share. Market domination manifested with the West trying to prevent developing nations from obtaining relative autarky [economic independence or self-sufficiency] i.e. they did their best to thwart developing nations' attempts at import substitution [O’ my the horror a country trying to build their economy to tailor to their national good and not that of the West]. Besides to West facillating dependency whether intentional or not it may have been to prevent other nations from competing economically on a significant scale.

Mapping the predecessor and proliferation of Truman's Myth

The good-intentioned Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Quarantine Speech likely referring to putting economic pressure on the more patent bad news bears nations’ Empire of Japan, the Kingdom of Italy, and Nazi Germany; set the precedent that interventionism is the solution that will stabilize unstable regions.

[See: Long-term policy and metaphor from the Wikipedia Page “Truman Doctrine”] “Its sweeping rhetoric, promising that the United States should aid all 'free people' being subjugated, set the stage for innumerable later ventures that led to globalisatic commitments.”.

The disease rhetoric also comes out about now with the "quarantine the aggressor" perception management technique being employed to get away with more direct military intervention now.

[See: Long-term policy and metaphor from the Wikipedia Page “Truman Doctrine”]

“By framing ideological differences in life or death terms, Truman was able to garner support for this communism-containing policy.”

It seems over time this "quarantine the aggressor" rhetoric escalated and become more and more blown out of proportion.

Over time this became more and more normal. With the US expected to intervene in all skirmishes for freedom, free-markets, and the like. #hypernormalisation

Quotes -

“Capitalism is not an inherently evil thing it’s amoral” -- Adam Curtis

Untampered Quote -“If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.” -- A version of the story from Daniel Quinn's The Story of B Digressional Opinion - I loved Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.

“One of the ways power conceals itself is by saying “This isn’t power at all, this is normal” “ -- Russell Brand

“The sign of a great ideology is something that doesn’t look like an ideology”

Wild Theories - The USA has a Christian population. Christians have a history of Crusades in the hopes to spread Christendom whatnot. The USA has a free market ideology the USA hoops into regime-change wars in the hopes of spreading free markets. If the USA had to choose between a kleptocrat who liked free markets and a kleptocrat who liked I don’t know a market economy thingo. The USA who help the kleptocrat who likes free markets.

Words For Ideas - Impotence, Complicit, Rational Ignorance, Normal, No Alternative?, Avoid Risk, Lend Money, Mass Market Culture,

Phrases For Ideas - Capitalism = Save Yourself, ?Capitalism derived from Protestantism?,

The Chaff

to the luck and good circumstance deprived “developing countries”. Maybe the prior heroic action i.e. the United State’s involvement in World War II.

In other words, the West were either the benefactors of things such as Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Citations: Works Cited

Hickel, Jason, et al. “The Development Delusion: Foreign Aid and Inequality.” American Affairs Journal, 20 Aug. 2017, americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/development-delusion-foreign-aid-inequality/. This article originally appeared in American Affairs Volume I, Number 3 (Fall 2017): 160–73.

“Russell Brand & Adam Curtis - Do We Really Want Change? | Under The Skin #03.” Performance by Russell Brand, and Adam Curtis, YouTube, His Own "Rebirth Tour" so Russell Brand Sponsored Himself , 22 July 2017, youtu.be/xBy08P7tHPQ. Youtube Video Description - This week I speak with filmmaker Adam Curtis about the rise of individualism, where real power lies, and whether we really want change.

Short, John R. Human Geography: A Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Wikipedia contributors. "Quarantine Speech." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 Jul. 2018. Web. 2 Oct. 2019.

Wikipedia contributors, 'Liberal internationalism', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 September 2019, 04:11 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Liberal_internationalism&oldid=917075688> [accessed 2 October 2019]

#democratic socialism #pretending to be a democratic socialist #libertarian joke paper #libertarian #feigned socialist #moribundmurdoch #ccmmurdoch

1 note · View note

solardrink · 3 years

Text

that song is playing again. ranboo jokes about being a mirror for halloween to really scare people. we laugh in parasocial concern but mostly relate. ranboo considers going to a furry convention. he has a gaydar for his fans. we can tell. someone took his cookie. we all know it was tubbo. he has raised over 200 thousand dollars for people in need. he has randomly lost his train of thought. nevermind, its about merch. the ding of collecting ores in minecraft plays over and over. hes leaking merch ideas. it is so late holy shit. this man is going to pass out i dont believe for a second hes going for 10 more hours. he says he has a bunch of hours left but I Do Not Believe him. there is so much love and support here. people talk about their experiences and funny stories and people all over the world, enough to fill a stadium. react and smile. ranboo misses chipotle, poor man misses his tex-mex type food from cali. hes talking about benchtrio and i am Listening Intently. theres a hierarchy apparently. ranboos at the bottom for doing things suggestions. L. tubbo and ranboo are both weak to tommy if he says no to something which is very funny to me. ranboo is talking about their dynamic like rock paper scissors. tubbo and tommy would rather die than go somewhere a mile away. ranboo is most definitely the mom friend. he brings extra battery packs and masks for his friends if they need them. this boy is so endearing. tommy can ask for any of ranboos stuff and ranboo will probably give it to him cause he cant say no. ranboo cant be mad when tubbo ate 3/4 of his chocolate because he didnt say how much he could have. ranboo stares at a piece of iron ore for 3 minutes because he doesnt know where it came from. "nothing and everything is going on." hes asking if a food was made from chemicals but had the same flavor and shape and texture would we eat it? i have no idea it sounds kinda weird but maybe. ranboo says if it tastes good he would and i kinda expected that answer. he is yawning and i am yawning. i feel like this song has played already. i feel like this song has played already. he believes that milk before cereal is obviously wrong but hates arguing his case- a real libertarian centrist i expected nothing less from the man who orchestrates c!ranboo. hes now talking about people yelling about content creators and im lowkey caught offguard cause i wasnt listening. i miss tubbo. his phone fell why does this happen so often. "GIVE US SOME MONEY" hes talking about the mcyttwt thread and i fuckin agree it is the funniest thing holy shit. that also means that he has seen the covid stuff about wilbur and the "white, gay, man, loona stan, pick a struggle tweet" about tubbo and i dont how to feel about that tidbit. i have also read all of it, if you havent please do. i expected nothing less from ranboo to enjoy it. he is permenantly talking in his sleep which is interesting and also concerning. oliver has bought amongus plushies. someones cat is watching the stream. ranboos favorite cat breed are the ones that look. just kidding its black and white ones. his worst recent nightmare is him messing up on a facecam stream which is a bit sad. i put a D: in chat to express the kind of parasocial emotion i feel. he would steal your chips. he would reimburse you because he would feel bad though. ranboo read "effortlessly" wrong which is very ironic and funny. he messed up saying it again. hes quitting the internet. he had a pretty bad nightmare :(. i want tubbo when is he coming back. ranboos getting better at bridging in minecraft. he did pretty well imo. ba bow bow now now now now. thanks for the 25 tier ones. he will paint his nails eventually. one day. one day. im teasing he will most likely do it maybe. he would probably pierce his ears and i am excited about that a normal amount. ba now bow na bow now. ouch facial dysmorphia ow streamer ow. this sucks. i am feeling trauma dumped on but this is okay. dono is asking where would he get chicken nuggets and fries and he doesnt know. i want chicken nuggets. WHAT THE HECKKK THE BURNER WHO

POSTED THE MCYTTWT THREAD DEACTIVATED CAUSE RANBOO TALKED ABOUT THEM :(( crap. ranboo didnt mean that to happen but its ok :( there are so many hearts in this dam chatroom. im glad there are so many hearts here. tens of thousands of people here being sympathetic and kind. ranboo is not sleeping. invisibility and shape shifting are the super powers he would pick if he could. we know why ouch. 100% of proceeds are going to charity: water. people are intimidated by ranboo. i am not. wilbur is a little scary though. ranboo doesnt know his personality type, i dont either i think i took the test at least twice but i still dont remember what i got. this song is playing again. im not mad angry people by lemon demon is one of my favorite songs. pepeDS. ranboo our variety streamer <3 my favorite non-mcyt. but actually can ranboo be considered a mcyt. because all his yt videos are not mc they are in fact cooking/furniture building/internet funnies. ranboo is going to have a gummy. yum. donos cat died and is still dead- which leaves the comical opportunity for the cat to be resurrected. WHAT HE DOESNT LIKE CHEESECAKE THAT MUCH BECAUSE THE AFTERTASTE? this man mustve had dairy free cheesecake wtf where is he getting his cheesecake from. hes very mature talking about his facial dysmorphia in a technical manner and i find that admirable. ou ch he knows what it means to use unconventional methods to fix facial dysmorphia ow ow ow fuck im a poc and i used to be self conscious of my nose when i was younger shit. "i bet you think ketchup is spicy white boy." i am going to sob. hes leaving michael headcanons to the writers/artists <3 i think that is pretty neat. chat he said piglin not penguin, dumbasses. im kidding i love chat this stream they are too hivemind and silly to be anything but well-behaved besides spamming. he is a hufflepuff. so am i. i took that damn quiz three times. he has not tried beans on toast because he is scared. i would be too. dono reminded all of us when dreamworks tried to make sexy fish. ranboo is upset now. im not mad that lady fish was pretty hot. ignore that. he wants us hot fish enjoyers out of his chat. im not leaving. i cant breathe im having so much fun. 5 more minutes until 12 hours. im not sure if this man has taken a bathroom break once. woo theres a hype train. hes talking about that one tiktok audio where theres an edit of minecraft streamers being told by their chat to say ____ rights or else they are homophobic. ranboos right its hilarious. i think i might end this post now smile bye bye :)

#ranboo #mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #ignore the parts where i put my opinion about random crap #long post

134 notes · View notes

theoppositeofadults · 3 years

Text

je suis la seule ‘constamment’ célibataire dans mon groupe d’amies et la blague (à laquelle je participe un peu) est que je ne sors qu’avec des losers

ce qui est objectivement faux. je suis intéressée par des gars qui sont parfaits on paper mais ensuite je réalise très vite qu’ils ne me correspondent absolument pas et donc je dis à mes copines “yeah i can’t date him he’s *défaut pas dramatique* (a communist/boring/...)

la plupart du temps c’est des gars très gentils, c’est hyper rare que je sois avec un ksos - et surtout, j’ai un “one strike, you’re out.” je sortais avec un gars qui a fait des remarques sexistes, je l’avais plaqué par SMS dans la demi-heure

ce qui n’est pas le cas de mes copines. et je les trouve donc très culottées. on avait prévu un petit groupcall à midi, et une a fait une blague “are you talking to a guy again? i hope he’s better than the last one ahah” - ce que j’ai moyennement apprécié

donc j’ai dit, “yeah i have a crush on this guy.” et j’ai commencé à le décrire. “he’s sooooo funny! i wouldn’t let him talk in front of my parents but he’s really hilarious ahah always a dark joke.” “sometimes i think he makes comments that are racists, but he’s a minority so I don’t think he actually is racist.” “he’s against vaccines but he doesn’t think Covid is an hoax so it’s not that bad, he wears his mask most of the time.” and “he’s a libertarian which i really like because i hate paying taxes”

et je les voyais palir

c’est enfin lorsque j’ai parlé des études de ce crush “he’s doing politics and international relations, it’s so cool” que ça a tilté. et ma “pote” a sorti “oh fuck off Sophie” parce que je ne décrivais pas mon crush :) je décrivais son copain avec qui elle parle mariage :)

#je n'aime pas cette pote hein que ça soit clair #genre je la tolère mais elle est proche de toutes les autres

25 notes · View notes

riseofthecommonwoodpile · 4 years

Text

some quick thoughts on Michael Schmidt’s Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism aka I Fucking Hated This Book:

(and also I’m kinda sick and my adhd meds are wearing off for the day so this will be poorly written, sorry)

I picked up Cartography because it seemed like a short but global history of anarchist movements from the 1860′s to today, which sounds great! I’m an anarchist, I like history, what could go wrong? and what i found was genuinely one of the worst books i’ve read in years. i’ve thought about formatting this into a proper review, but no one really cares, so let’s do bullet points:

—the most immediately obvious and glaring problem is that Schmidt treats Marxism as if it is an equal (or sometimes implied to be even greater) enemy to anarchists than capitalism. he at one point literally does the “fascism was bad, but the USSR was just as bad” lib thing, and it comes across as completely ideologically blinded. i am well aware of the ways in which anarchists have been treated under centralized communist states, and let’s just say i am Not A Fan, but even thinking about that, the fact that the only opposition to anarchism we hear about regularly is marxist-leninist opposition, and not fucking CAPITALIST OPPOSITION, skews it into the most blindly and dumbly polemical shit i’ve read since, ironically, Lenin’s State and Revolution —every time he says Maoism he puts it in scare quotes? “Maoism”. it’s silly —he claims that anarcho-syndicalism is the most influential and powerful leftist movement and idea of the 20th century, which like....... —by “anarchism”, he means, specifically, anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism, even that which is not explicitly anarchist. he says anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism are the same thing, basically, so we’ll just call them both anarcho-syndicalism, and also any anarchism that doesn’t follow Bakunin isn’t really anarchism, the only way forward for anarchism is through platformism, and all other forms of anarchism are individualist and don’t care about class struggle. i don’t even need to get into how absurd that all is. even if you agree with it, that shit has to be defended, it is not self-evident as he treats it —the history is both a.) bad and b.) terribly written. this comes across in three main ways: one, there is an equation of all union efforts with anarcho-syndicalism, which, yes, was very influential on union organizing throughout the world (and continues to be very influential), but that equivalence is just not helpful or explanatory. it’s clearly just polemic to make it seem like there were more influential and powerful anarchist groups in the world than there actually were. two, he just throws out numbers for the sizes of some of these groups, and the vast, VAST majority of the time gives no context for them. he will say X group in Uruguay had X amount of members in 1935...but i have no idea if that’s a lot or a little. what percentage of workers in this industry was that? what percentage of the population? how did that compare with other political groups in that same time and place? without context these numbers mean literally nothing. and beyond that, some of the groups he talks about are so tiny and dissolved so quickly that it feels a lot of the time like i’m reading a brief history of global communism that included, in the 8 pages of actual history from 1990-today, an entire paragraph about every splinter group of the US red guards —three, and this one requires its own bullet point because of how much it sucked to read, he goes into way too much detail for the space he’s given himself, and there is no reasonable way for him to adequately discuss or give even an impression of every group he brings up. for example, in the 15 history-focused pages for what he called the “third wave” from 1924-1949 (and these are small pages too, about 4 1/2″ x 7 1/4″, like the size of a sci-fi paper back but with regular medium size text), the following groups are brought up and given abbreviations:

AAUD (General Workers’ Union of Germany)

AAU-E (General Labor Union- Unity Organization)

ACAT (American Continental Workingmen’s Association

ACF (Anarchist Communist Federation)

AFB (Anarchist Federation of Britain)

AFD (German Anarchist Federation)

AFP (Anarchist Federation of Poland)

CCRA (Continental Commission of Anarchist Relations)

CGIL (General Confederation of Italian Workers)

CGIL (General Italian Workers’ Federation) [Yes, they have the same abbreviation, because they are the same thing, but are presented twice with slightly different names and given abbreviations both times]

CGT (General Confederation of Labor, given in a previous chapter but I had to google)

CIA (Anarchist International Commission)

CLU (Conference of Labor Unions)

CNT (National Confederation of Labor)

CNT-DG (General Delegation of the CNT)

CRIA (Anarchist International Relations Commission)

EAAF (East Asian Anarchist Federation)

FAF (Francophone Anarchist Federation)

FAGPL (Federation of Anarchist-Communist Groups of Poland and Lithuania)

FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation)

FAKB (Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria)

FAU (Free Worker’s Union)

FAUD (Free Workers Union of Germany)

FdCAI (Federation of Italian Anarchist Communes)

FFLU (Federation of Free Labor Unions)

FFS (Federation of Libertarian Socialists)

FFSB (Federation of Free Society Builders)

FG (Free Trade Unions)

FIJL (Libertarian Youth Federation of Iberia)

FISR (International Revolutionary Syndicalist Federation)

FKAD (Federation of Communist Anarchists of Germany)

FORV (Venezuelan Regional Workers’ Federation)

FvDG (Free Association of German Trade Unions

GAK (Group of Anarchist Communists, defined in a previous chapter but I had to google just now)

GFP (General Worker’s Federation)

HCH (General League of Koreans)

IFA (Presented without definition, I think defined in a previous chapter but google says it stands for International of Anarchist Federations, but that doesn’t make sense because that was formed in the late 60′s, way after this and the previous chapters, so idk)

IWA (International Workers Association, given in a previous chapter and presented in this one without explanation but that I know of through outside knowledge)

IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, same as previous entry)

JAC (Japanese Anarchist Club)

JAF (Japanese Anarchist Federation)

JJLL (Libertarian Youth)

KACF (Korean Anarchist Communist Federation)

KAF (Korean Anarchist Federation)

KAF-C (Korean Anarchist Federation in China)

KAF-M (Korean Anarchist Federation in Manchuria)

KRF (Korean Revolutionist Federation)

KSS (Black Front Society)

KYFSC (Korean Youth Federation in South China)

LSC (Libertarian Socialist Council)

MLNA (North African Libertarian Movement)

OVB (Independent League of Trade Unions)

POI (Italian Worker’s Party)

PSAR (Revolutionary Anarchist Socialist Party

PSI (Italian Socialist Party)

RPAU (Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, presented without definition but defined in a previous chapter and I know of through outside knowledge. Of note, I almost never hear this referred to like this. Everyone says The Black Army)

RR (Worker’s Solidarity)

RRU (Worker’s Solidarity Movement)

SPD (Marxist Social Democratic Party)

SPIRA (Provisional Secretariat on International Relations)

SWF (Syndicalist Worker’s Federation)

UAI (Italian Anarchist Union)

UCAI (Union of Communist Anarchists of Italy)

USI (Italian Syndicalist Union)

VB (Free Union)

ZK (Kronstadt Accords)

ZSP (Polish Syndicalist Union)

ZZZ (Union of Trade Unions)

bruh I am not joking, he brings all of these up in 15 pages and it seems like you are expected to be able to both remember them and keep track of them as you read, although i’m almost certain a great deal of them are given an abbreviation, mentioned in one sentence, and then never mentioned again. however, i can not promise you that, because you KNOW i could not keep this shit straight or remember any of it.

anyways i am so fucking fed up typing all of those that i don’t want to do this anymore. the book fucking sucks, don’t get it.

10 notes · View notes

soulvomit · 5 years

Text

I feel like being Jewish means I am expected to tolerate the kinds of remarks, loyalty tests, and jokes from non-Jews all around me that would get labeled hateful or punching-down toward any other group.

This is the kind of post, and it's popular on my FB:

And whenever I point it out, I'm gaslit about it. I'm told by right wingers and libertarian types that I'm being "shaming" (which they equate to hate speech) and I'm told by everyone else that I'm "too sensitive" even though the same kind of thing isn't allowed with any other group.

Then I'm told I'm an asshole because I put my own people first, and it leads to arguments about whether Jewishness is actually an ethnic identity as opposed to an opt-in colonizing religion or even worse of an assumption, an opt-in feel-good lifestyle identity.

Btw this was from someone I know who's Native, so they don't want to extend the same consideration to some other groups that they expect to be extended to themselves.

Fuck people who act like this. Unfortunately, where I am, most people act like this.

I'm in a very.... bubbled up, very NOT diverse community. Everyone hangs out in their own enclave and people don't mix. Not like where I grew up.

Among white people here, the two sides are Christians who go to strip mall churches and post anti-LGBTQ stuff in the local paper (which they own), and the geeks/furries/etc who constitute their angry white offspring, so I get a lot of this shit, period.

4 notes · View notes

mylifeatwar · 6 years

Photo

Book 2, Chapter 2, Page 3

Archived Text Follows:

It’s still not midnight in my timezone yet so this page totally counts as being on time! In all seriousness though, Matt had this page done hours ago but I was kind of in the middle of a tattoo session and wasn’t really available to post it. That’s on me, not him

I really love this fucking page by the way, especially the shading in panel 2. There’s also some great foreshadowing here, but I’ll let you folks find it yourselves.

Something that Matt and I were joking about recently was language and accents in the MLaW verse. While the language that Free Marketeers is essentially supposed to be English (though they call it Treadspake) the accent is pretty different. It took me forever to find but here’s an example of what someone with a heavy Free Market accent sounds like to someone who doesn’t speak Treadspake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa-lmcdlq4A&list=FLWEkhqIkBE080OHhK-mC85g&index=1

You can already imagine how that colors most people’s perception of the average Free Marketeer.

Thanks for reading!

– Luther out

Comment Text Follows:

lhsc - Oh ho, Lulu is going to defend her favorite asset. Always bet on the Lulu.

Gillsing - So Free Marketeers aren’t big on enunciation, huh? I guess I’d need to hire a translator to understand them then. Oh. I see what they did there.

Killercow - BOP DAP BOODLY DAP DAU. Also, is lulu like, majorly huge? She looks at least a foot taller than the guy next to her, and she’s taller than Big Al by quite a bit.

plaintextman - Yeah, mista Patenge mentioned it during the long-winded discussion started around chapter 1’s cover: http://www.mylifeatwar.com/?p=26“ Lulubelle merely appears at a normal height because she’s been shown standing next to Captain Theroux, who is a very… very large ogre of a man. We made them this way as a response to the mecha genre being full of diminutive female characters, most often relegated to a non-combat role who spend way too much of their time stating everything they feel.” And MLAW is slowly but surely defying that “softy women” trope more and more (without — so far — overdoing it).

Mr. Patenge - Lulu-Belle (and her friend Missy) are around 6’3″. It’s all those chemicals and hormones in the milk man… also in the soda, the water, the coffee the air, the beer and, for some reason, the toilet paper.

Killercow - I gotta get me some of that toilet paper! Being 6’4 without, I’d probably be a freaky giant!

Iarei - Dat reflection.

Grudgesettler - Fridge with legs versus Lulubelle. Taking all bets, remember the house charges a 15% gratuity from all proceeds. A question, if I may. This one is regarding the competitive nature of the Free Market and their attitudes towards monopolies. From your answer regarding an earlier question about the util, I gather that for the most part, monopolies are disliked. My question is this: what guarantees the continuation of this competition instead of the eventual creation of a series of monopolies? I suspect that the Free Market doesn’t have much in the way of Anti-trust laws. Excellent page. I especially love the perspective shot in the second frame.

Zarpaulus - Three words: Mega-fun food inc. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that they do a thing to prevent monopolies, real life economic Libertarians don’t so why would fictional ones?

rfaramir - You don’t have to fight monopolies, so long as you have no State which can grant one. So-called “natural monopolies” are rare and not a problem to the free market. Think of a one-of-a-kind mineral mine. Consumers did fine before the mine was discovered, life got better when it’s otherwise-unobtanium made production more efficient, but if the price goes too high, the free market will work at creating alternatives or doing without, going back to previous production modes without the others-unobtainable substance. Potential competition keeps monopolists from charging truly damaging monopoly prices.

Iarei - That simply is not true. You’re drawing an imaginary line in the sand between ‘monopoly’ and ‘dictatorship’ that does not exist. “A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned”. In any hypothetical ungoverned free market, the most powerful monopoly necessarily assumes the role of governance. You’ve heard of ‘company stores’ right? Any barrier to entry for competition that exists under a corrupt government is going to exist in a free market system. The only difference is that the company wouldn’t need to bribe any politicians. A question was raised earlier in this comic – “How can Fizziz stay in business if their product is both foul and poisonous”. If you’ve been paying attention here you should already know the answer.

Killercow - No, it tends to be governments that aid monopolies. In a perfectly free market, in theory, a monopoly can’t hold any power because as soon as the price becomes too dear, another company can come and offer competition at a lower price. These are opportunistic people, who would jump at a chance to undercut a company that was being a little too excessive with their prices for their worth, and without a government to aid in forcing opposition out of business, or breaking strikes and such, monopolies would be much harder to obtain. Not impossible, but extremely difficult. For example, look at the role the security contractors play. On one page it is mentioned that Mega Fun Foods is subsidizing their losses to keep them fighting, and it is mentioned that “Few enough companies can do our job”. While they don’t hold a monopoly, because of the couple of other security companies, which keep them from overcharging, they are a specialized and presumably expensive commodity. They have skills that are rare and useful, and charge more for it. But even those skills are not unique to one company. As for Fizziz, I think that was supposed to be more of a joke than a serious commentary on monopoly, but it may have also been something else, like it has a niche market of… I don’t know, horse pee lovers or something. Or it might be an acquired taste. Or maybe they used to offer good products and now people just blindly buy the brand.

Iarei - Monopolies help themselves, they don’t need a government to do so. All they need is thugs they can pay to shoot anyone not working the line or a sufficiently high barrier to entry. What magic power do you think you have over a monopoly that you don’t have over a government? A working government acts as a check against monopolies. Like, the government that’s literally fighting a monopoly owned mercenary company in this comic? The comic you’re reading? As far as monopolies you might be familiar with go, how about your ISP? If you live in the US I can all but guarantee you you’re overpaying. That’s in a country where the government nominally has legislation intended to prevent monopolies. In this example, it has nothing to do with the government, it has to do with the fact that those companies are better off ripping off the customers in their respective fiefdoms than expanding their infrastructure into areas with competing services with competitive rates. What do you think would happen if your gas, electricity or water were held by a private entity that could set it’s own prices? I’m sure some competing company can come out of nowhere and set up competing utility lines, right? Free market magic, goo! I’m sure you can find your own solution when prices for necessities become to prohibitive, right? Want a drink of water? Hope your rain barrel’s full or you’ll be buying from T. Boone Pickens. Oh no your house is on fire? Don’t worry, Marcus Licinius Crassus is here to help! Someone’s robing your house? Store? Did you pay your protection fund? Oh, and while this is getting beside the point remember that without a government there’s no regulation on things like ‘can that company dump toxic waste in my river’ or ‘can that company sweeten it’s drinks with lead acetate’. Is our governments perfect? Are they even moderately close to good? No, probably not. It still beats the ever living hell out the alternative.

Plaintextman - Remember that regulations like ‘minimum wage’ and ‘standard bread price’ come from governments. These are made to keep monopolies in check, or rather, to effectively grant the common man some power over companies, in turn evening out the concentration of power. However, also true that insane-level OHSA requirements, government-tendered projects to large companies and overtly strict permit regulations are all government-implemented things that can make it hard if not impossible for small players to get in the game, thus supressing competition. So yeah, it’s not really so much a question of whether there is a formal government or not. More a question of how those in power act, for they are the ‘government’. And this is ultimately determined by what kind of rights (formal and de facto) the common man is granted. Do you have the right to shop somewhere else without fear for your life? The right to your own property? Freedom of speech? I love the idea of free markets. They’ve been so successful over the centuries because of that awesome self-correcting mechanism of ‘competition’; just about every city ever had a market place where businesses could offer and compete, much more than can be said of less natural systems like communism. But “total objective freedom” doesn’t really exist, so no market can be truly “free”. Illegal (drug-) industry is example of an ‘anarcho-capitalist free market’ environment that’s also extremely unfriendly to just about everyone except those in power. And the reason why boils down to how uncaring those in power (“government”) are and how little power the common person (consumer) it given: as long as they pay nobody really gives a shit about them. And if they stop paying by say, buying from a cheaper supplier, they might as well die along with that supplier.

motorfirebox - I like the tan lines.

#comic #webcomic #boxing

1 note · View note

newsunlimit · 4 years

Text

How Bitcoin went from cowboy currency to commonplace

https://www.newsunlimit.com/how-bitcoin-went-from-cowboy-currency-to-commonplace/

How Bitcoin went from cowboy currency to commonplace

How Bitcoin went from cowboy currency to commonplace: Gone are the times when the phrase Bitcoin would conjure pictures of illicit drug shopping for on darkish net marketplaces — perceptions have shifted.

Properties have been put up on the market with a price ticket in Bitcoin and with retailers implementing fee methods that enable Bitcoin transactions, DIY gear, quick meals, and coffees can all be purchased with the digital forex in some elements of the world.

You’d now be hard-pressed to search out somebody who hasn’t heard of Bitcoin, even when it may be tougher to discover a prepared volunteer who can clarify how the blockchain expertise the cryptocurrency is constructed on works.

Read more: What wiped out the dinosaurs? Harvard scientists have a new point of view …

So much has been modified since its beginnings in 2009 when one coin was valued lower than €1 — this week it hit new data bypassing the $50,000 (€41,529) barrier.

Right here, Euronews seems on the key milestones within the forex’s evolution, spoke to a number of the individuals who have embraced it, in addition to a number of the much less fascinating impacts of its reputation.

2009 — Bitcoin launches The cryptocurrency’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, launched Bitcoin’s software program in January 2009. After the publication, Bitcoin miners began the community by producing Bitcoin and confirming transactions for the primary time.

To today, nobody is aware of if a person or group is behind the alias. In a 2008 white paper, Nakamoto is known as Bitcoin “a peer-to-peer model of digital money” and set out its primary options equivalent to transactions and privateness.

Bitcoin was designed on the precept that it might be used anonymously and securely, with transactions verified and recorded in a publicly distributed ledger known as a blockchain.

Read more: Michigan: The Best State to Invest in America

2011 — Bitcoin has taken up by darknet markets The darknet market Silk Highway, a web-based black market greatest referred to as a platform for promoting unlawful medication, launched in 2011 with Bitcoin as a fee choice. Whereas the FBI shut Silk Highway down in 2013, seizing its Bitcoin, different darknet markets took up the mantle utilizing Bitcoin as a forex.

Whereas Bitcoin’s use on Silk Highway was what made headlines, the identical 12 months, respectable Bitcoin funds had been additionally established. BitPay, a service supplier providing fee processing for retailers, launched in Might and had over 1,100 retailers signed up in 12 months.

l Image sources

How most kids felt about video games or sports, my pastime was Bitcoin. Erik Finman ‘Bitcoin millionaire at 18’

Erik Finman is understood in crypto circles for being the self-proclaimed youngest Bitcoin millionaire at age 18. In 2011, aged simply 12-years-old, he invested $1,000 his grandmother gave to him within the cryptocurrency. At the time, one token would set you again around $12.

The Idaho native’s entry into the Bitcoin universe happened due to an opportunity assembly at a protest. His older brother introduced him to an illustration in opposition to the arrest of activists who danced on the Jefferson Memorial, he defined.

“It was very a lot a footloose protest,” he added. “Some man had this orange ‘B’ that appeared like a greenback signal on his shirt. Sort of half-joking I requested him what it was. And then you definitely had a bunch of riot police and so they advised us all to depart. So, in the course of working from the police, he was like: ‘Oh, it is Bitcoin man, it should finish Wall Road, the bro.’ And ran off.”

After that, Finman mentioned he and his older brother appeared it up and have become enthusiastic about different currencies. “I suppose I used to be going by that rose-tinted-glasses, libertarian part on the time — it a form of modified my views on the world. You understand, once you’re 12, that is loopy.”

“How most youngsters felt about video games or sports activities, my pastime was Bitcoin,” he advised Euronews.

Now 21, Finman has grown his holdings in crypto cash and constructed a multi-million greenback crypto firm. He has additionally funded tasks together with the making of a real-life Dr. Octopus swimsuit, “which was very cool,” in addition to a number of different charity endeavors.

Has he seen a change in perceptions of Bitcoin? “Now, it is getting much more institution. I believe a variety of that’s to do with the cult around it. Not that it was too huge to fail, nevertheless it had too fanatic a fanbase.”

2013 — First Bitcoin ATMs The Slovakian capital, Bratislava, was one of many earliest cities to see a Bitcoin ATM fitted after the primary was put in in Vancouver, Canada, in October 2013. There are actually greater than 3.5 million internationally.

2017/2018 — Bitcoin value hikes… after which crashes For a lot of, 2017 was the 12 months Bitcoin appeared on their radar. The tokens had reached an all-time excessive of $19,700 (€16,236) on the finish of the 12 months amid a media frenzy. Its hovering value additionally meant heightened institutional curiosity, with governments and buyers taking discover and digital currencies to compete with Bitcoin being developed. Bitcoin’s narrative was bolstered amid stories of cash printing by central banks — one of many cryptocurrency’s key options is that it’s restricted to precisely 21 million cash and never yet one more than will be mined.

Read more: The five most famous sports cars in history, which one do you prefer?

However then, Bitcoin costs plummeted by a sequence of crashes in 2018, dropping again right down to $3,700 (€3,048) by the tip of the 12 months — marking one of the pronounced examples of the digital forex’s trademark unpredictable value swings.

We already surpassed the whole traditional financial banking system for more than three and a half years. And that’s the game for us — how can we show the world we already live in the future? Didi Taihuttu Father of the ‘Bitcoin Family’

For the Bitcoin Household, 2018 was 12 months they needed to trip out. Initially from the Netherlands, in the summertime of 2017, they offered almost all of their possessions and invested them in Bitcoin, to change into “digital nomads”, dwelling in a minimalistic way of life, powered by the digital forex.

“You’ll be able to look into the longer term. We dwell very merely, we dwell day-by-day,” defined Didi Taihuttu, the Father of the Bitcoin Household.

“In 2018 we mentioned to ourselves: ‘We’ll take this 12 months, we’ll go to dwell on campsites, dwell in nature, dwell in stunning Asian international locations, and we’ll see it as a journey. How can we save as many Bitcoins as potential however nonetheless get pleasure from life?’ A camper van in Portugal by the ocean, sleeping free of charge, showering on the seashore; all issues children by no means did earlier than. After which the youngsters are like: ‘Oh, yeah, that is a journey. It isn’t our dad and mom who’s depressed as a result of Bitcoin goes down.'”

And that is what the household did. After coming by 2018, they’ve been traveling and dwelling the nomadic way of life they hoped the cryptocurrency would afford them for over three and a half years. “In 2018, life value us one Bitcoin per thirty days. Now, in 2020, one Bitcoin buys us 12 months,” Taihuttu mentioned.

He and his spouse took their three daughters off in the hunt for freedom and “not being a part of the system anymore”. For the primary six months of their Bitcoin-powered travels, they saved their conventional financial institution accounts however for the previous few years, they removed them and have solely used cryptocurrency and crypto options. Earlier than they obtained their first crypto debit card two years in the past, they purchased on-line Bitcoin coupons and exchanged them for groceries or McDonald’s coupons, reserving everything from flights and inns on-line with Bitcoin.

Read more: The five most famous sports cars in history, which one do you prefer?

“After all, it is somewhat a little bit of a raffle,” Taihuttu mentioned. “However on the opposite aspect, it is solely a raffle in case you’re not ready to lose and for us, at that time in life, we clearly realized that cash did not have any worth to us anymore. We had been ready to lose everything, all the cash, all the posh as a result of we did not care about that anymore.”

What does the longer term maintain for the Bitcoin Household? “That is a really arduous query. For me, I’ve traveler blood that wishes to discover the entire world however we now have already switched from very quick traveling to gradual traveling. We keep in each nation for no less than 4 or 5 months to essentially discover the nation and to get to know the folks, the tradition.”

Apart from persevering with the charity work they’ve been concerned about for some years, Taihuttu says the household is wanting into creating some “digital nomad coworking dwelling locations” in Portugal and Thailand so his kids and spouse can have “social bases”.

2020 — A flash crash, all-time-high, and PayPal adoption The final 12 months was an eventful 12 months within the Bitcoin universe. The net forex skilled a “flash crash” in March amid a worldwide financial slowdown attributable to the coronavirus pandemic however began a vertical climb that accelerated in early October.

Initially of 2020, Bitcoin was nonetheless thought of as a fringe funding, however, by the tip of the 12 months, it had almost quadrupled in worth and reached an all-time excessive above $28,000 (€23,072), seeing it an agency fixture within the conversations of buyers huge and small.

Microsoft was one of many early Large Tech adopters and commenced accepting the forex as a type of fee for digital objects in December 2014. However, it was on-line juggernaut PayPal’s announcement that it could be permitting its prospects to purchase and promote Bitcoin in October final 12 months that signaled the crypto-cash had been accepted into mainstream tradition.

Read more: These are the best cars of the year 2020

2021 — Tesla buys Bitcoin however environmentalists name out energy starvation Quick ahead to February 2021 and Bitcoin almost reached the report excessive of $50,000 (€41,529) thanks in no small half to Tesla saying it had purchased $1.5 billion value of the digital cash. Later the identical month, it did hit report ranges.

However, is a digital gold rush in decentralized forex managed by its customers too good to be true? Nicely, environmentalists are calling consideration to the less-publicized aspect of Bitcoin — its power consumption. The computational energy demanded by the cryptocurrency for mining and validating transactions is immense. A current evaluation by Cambridge College put the power consumption into perspective by saying Bitcoin makes use of extra electrical energy yearly than the entire of Argentina.

Critics have hit out at Tesla, which pegs itself as “accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable power with electrical automobiles, photovoltaic and built-in renewable power options for houses and companies”, for selecting to spend money on the tokens, saying it goes in opposition to its pro-environment message.

Whereas many sing the praises of Bitcoin, in addition to reaping its advantages, its elevated profile and the eye that comes with which have seen its ethics known as into query. Regardless of the destiny of the digital forex, devotees will “HODL” — slang locally for holding the cryptocurrency somewhat than promoting it— believing it doesn’t matter what the crash, Bitcoin will rise once more.

#how bitcoin atm works #how bitcoin started #how bitcoin trading works #How Bitcoin went from cowboy forex to commonplace #how bitcoin works #how bitcoin works pdf

0 notes

kawuli · 7 years

Text

The 2000 Presidential election was the last election I was too young to vote in. My US history/gov’t/whatever it was I was taking at the time teacher made us do a bunch of research on the various candidates, and she’d found out about these websites that told you all sorts of information about everyone who was running for president! so we had to look up everyone who was running for president and write something about their platform.

Oh my god you guys, so many people run for president. She eventually agreed to let us pick 10 people to write about. Bush, Gore, Nader, some Libertarian candidate probably, and a bunch of people who didn’t have ANY party affiliation, or were one of 12 members of the “we really like weed” party.

Anyway. There was a lot of “well, Gore is just more of the same Clinton neoliberal globalization bullshit, we’re never going to get anything better if we don’t start supporting third parties” going around. I had a fair amount of sympathy for this position, as an 18-year-old who had just learned about the Battle of Seattle WTO shutdown and thought it sounded great. Rage Against the Machine played at the DEMOCRATIC National Convention. Not because they were worse than Republicans, but because neoliberals seemed to be running the Dems just as much as they were running the Republicans, and just maybe big protests would actually affect the Dems.

And so, election night. I was at Indiana’s public magnet boarding school for my last two years of high school (which was a lifesaver, wow, but that’s another story) and my roommate and I were in trouble because our room was a disaster zone. We had previously gotten away with it because when our RA came to do room checks, I’d been tutoring like 8 girls in AP physics using a chalkboard I stole from my parents’ basement, and when confronted with that many girls and that much math our RA backed out slowly without noticing the mess.

But she had caught on, and we had to clean up. So we had NPR on the radio and were sorting through stuff and taping important papers to the walls because we had an “important things don’t go on flat surfaces” policy, and we were listening to results come in.

And they were calling states, and it was very exciting except that I mean there wasn’t a real sense of urgency about it, both candidates were kind of terrible. Clinton signed NAFTA and welfare “reform” and we were supposed to be excited for 4 more years of a less-interesting version of that? Al Gore couldn’t even carry his home state! (Tennessee. Of course he couldn’t.)

And they kept not calling Florida. And not calling it, and not calling it, until finally, sometime after midnight, we went to bed. And we were all excited, because History was being made, woah!

And you all know how that ended up. And for most of 2001, GW Bush was just…a joke. The idiot president who got put in office by the Supreme Court and spends more time golfing than governing.

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how sharply the rhetoric changed after 9/11. This idiot former coke addict draft dodging daddy’s boy became Our Fearless Leader, overnight, with the help of some rubble and a bullhorn.

And all of a sudden, the government that had never deigned to notice when feminist groups talked about how badly women were being treated under the Taliban was pointing to those same human rights violations as clear justification for overthrowing the regime in Afghanistan.

And all of a sudden, the PATRIOT Act. I remember laughing about it, because seriously? That’s what you’re calling it?

And then, not all of a sudden but a couple years later, the day after my goddamn 20th birthday, George W Bush, the Shrub, that guy who used to talk about “compassionate conservatism” (and isn’t that a joke in 2018), was on TV saying Saddam Hussein had to get out or he’d start bombing.

And--here’s the kicker--lots and lots of people who should have known better thought that well, even if the justifications are dodgy, Saddam Hussein is a bad guy, we should take him out for the good of the Iraqi people. (Because the US has an excellent track record of that working out well, for literally anybody but maybe oligarchs and weapons manufacturers.)

I had yelling arguments with guys I smoked weed with over whether or not the war was a good idea.

Which is why one of my biggest “wow, the future is fucked up” issues is just how differently I feel about organizations like the New York Times (embedded journalists, Tom Friedman op-eds about how great the war was gonna be, etc) and the Democratic Party (ONE PERSON voted against the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists” on September 14, 2001: Barbara Lee, D-CA, a Black woman. In 2002, 82 Democratic Representatives and 29 Democratic Senators voted FOR the authorization of the invasion of Iraq). Y’all, if you wanna bitch about the Democratic Party NOW, at least go look at where it’s come from--just within my voting-lifetime, and I’m not that old.

In February 2003 there were 10 million people around the world protesting the buildup to war. And almost none of them were established Democratic politicians. At least in 2017 the Womens March wasn’t being controlled by weirdo socialists because nobody mainstream would touch it for fear of being called unpatriotic. (alas, it turns out that the Womens March is being run by asshole anti-semites, but at the time of the march, it was incredibly mainstream and at least seen as being run by a coalition of, well, pretty much everyone)

The only thing, the only thing good that seems to be coming out of the otherwise-unmitigated disaster that is the Trump presidency is that so many people have gotten together to oppose it.

There was no Indivisible in 2003. If there had been, maybe I wouldn’t have spent election night 2004 getting drunk because what the FUCK people how did you vote for this guy AGAIN oh my GOD MORE PEOPLE VOTED FOR HIM IN 2004 THAN IN 2000 WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

When I talk about how important it is to support Democratic politicians, this is why. Not because I love the Democratic party. I remain fundamentally skeptical of political parties, especially given how much money is involved (way more now than in 2003, too). But if I’m anything, I’m pragmatic. “You can’t just keep voting for the lesser of two evils” was played out and disproved in 2000. You vote for the lesser of two evils, and then you keep pushing that person to be less evil. Your job doesn’t stop after you leave the voting booth, you don’t select the Perfect Representative and then go home and go to sleep for 2-4 years. You pick the person who’s most likely to listen to you and then you keep yelling at them for 2-4-6 years. But you gotta start by voting for someone who has a chance in hell of listening to you.

Somewhere, (maybe here?) I read something like: “For nonviolent resistance to work, it requires that the government be capable of shame.”

They were talking about Central America (I think Guatemala). I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot lately, but about the United States. Many parts of our current government are clearly incapable of shame. The current occupant of the White House, certainly, but also the Republican Senators who keep talking about how awful and uncivilized all this is, but vote however Mitch McConnell tells them to, and the guy on our local City Council who said “I don’t care what you people think, we’re cutting funding to after-school programs and also for crossing guards because fuck poor kids, amirite?”

If we want civil disobedience, protest, direct action, any of it to be effective, we need a government that is capable of shame. That will look at millions of its citizens protesting and actually think “well, maybe I better do something differently.”

The only way we get that kind of government is by voting for it.

---

(I started this as a reblog of this post from @idiopathicsmile about “what was the GWBush era really like?” but it...evolved.)

#vote motherfucker vote #mo rants #my code is compiling #note

4 notes · View notes

anarcho-neoliberalism · 7 years

Note

Im so glad people realize that misanthropic luddite bullshit (anti-civilization) is harmful. It kills every disabled person and most of the human population on paper. Do you think there is a risk of them killing people like they did in the 80s and 90s? (unabomber was an anti civ libertarian capitalist)

the more people I can turn away from that awful little mess of ideology the better. Even if some " left" anti-civs don't directly advocate for the direct deaths of disabled people or massive human die off, the end result of their ideologies implementation would be the same. But I wouldn't worry about that ever happening because the entirety of anti-civ ideology on every single level is entirely self defeating. It has zero chance of succeeding, and more than that it doesn't even WANT to succeed itself.

I'm not even joking.

Anti-civ ideology literally does not want itself to get the power to implement itself. Anti-civs do not want or even have any ideas how to succeed in their goals. It's literally ideologically opposed to any kind of revolution in its favor.

The most that can be accomplished by anti-civs is at best running a punk house venue. I can remember distinctly asking a very big primmie what good anti civ praxis was and literally got the answer "jerking off to good porn" as a serious straightfaced answer to overthrowing capitalism.

Although some of the worst kind of anti-civ ilk are in fact killing people in Mexico for going on hikes and thus "exploiting nature". The particular group of scumbags identifies as "Individualists Tending Toward the Wild (AKA "I.T.S." ) and in my humble opinion they all belong in a mass grave.

3 notes · View notes

mrepstein · 7 years

Photo

Daily Express - Tuesday August 29, 1967

It was a zany period… young people grabbed Beatle music and the society it bred

The Epstein Era

By ALIX PALMER and JUDITH SIMONS

The Epstein Era began on October 28, 1961, and ended the day before yesterday. Six short years of spiralling success unmatched in the unpredictable history of show business. Its influence reached far beyond the tread of the teenage revolution - some would say it sparked it off - clearing the way for new crazes, new outlets for self-expression, new trading posts.

By the time Epstein arrived, the scene was made up of a whole generation of young people born since the end of the war.

They were bored, feeling they were outsiders in a society they didn’t really understand and which was clinging to traditions they despised.

They belonged to a generation that was maturing more quickly than the provisions their parents were making for them.

When Beatle music and the kind of society it bred appeared - they grabbed it and made it their own.

Those who thought they had seen it all happen before were cynical. “It will have the same impact as rock ‘n’ roll in the ‘fifties,” they said. “Here today, gone tomorrow.”

But the cynics had underestimated the need for a new mood, the need of the young to feel important, the need for a new libertarian attitude reminiscent of the sixteenth - century troubadours of France.

In the beginning, the Beatles and their stable-mates offered no deep messages. They weren’t protesting - that was to come later from America, with Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

Their lyrics were somewhat crude - but the emotions they expressed were understood by all.

Their romanticism was as raw as the smell of the Mersey it sprang from. You couldn’t smooch to their beat - so you made up new dances.

And while you were making these uninhibited movements, you found your old clothes uncomfortable, staid and fit for the dustbin or the scissors.

Your parents may laugh - but you were spending your own money. And it was fun to go without lunch to be able to pay for this week’s top pop.

It was a zany period, an era of fantasy, and as with all such revolutions, it eventually reached a point where it could no longer remain uniform. Off-shoots of extremism were the natural progression, the time for even greater experiment, the realisation for some that simplicity was not enough.

And so to drugs and deeper self analysis, the feeling of restlessness that follows a concentrated effort of enjoyment.

And guiding the whole movement were the profit-makers, the people who saw the opportunity for a quick sell.

But it was not all bad. Those who were making money for themselves were also making money for Britain.

Sales of British records in the first half of 1963 rose by 12 per cent to a record total of £8,386,000.

By 1964 it was not unusual to find eight British names in America’s top ten - at one point the Beatles alone held the first four places. The No. 6 spot was filled by Lorne Green singing a song called “Ringo.”

By the end of that year Britain’s beat stars had earned £20 million from the U.S.

Never before had Britain been so clearly the leader of the international pop scene, and the enthusiasm that grew out of this spilled over into other industries.

For the fans - who have bought more than 200 million Beatles’ records - not only wanted to listen to their idols. They wanted to look like them too.

Which brought in the fashion designers and clothing manufacturers.

It is no coincidence that this era brought success to the young fashion designers who began to compete and even take over from Paris, people like Mary Quant, Angela Cash, Caroline Charles and John Steven on the men’s side - all striving to kill routine in clothes, behaviour and attitude.

Musical magazines and newspapers prospered too.

Sales of the top-selling musical paper, the New Musical Express, rose by one-third in 1963, from 236,000 to 326,000.

Epstein himself went into publishing. He took over the local Liverpool pop paper Merseybeat, now merged with Disc.

And so was created a country of new ideas, where the young were as important as the experienced middle-aged, finding their own identity, changing it from month to month, wearing an army uniform one day, a flowered shirt the next, scorning Auntie B.B.C. to offer their devotions to the with-it pirates.

It could well be that all this would have happened without Epstein. But he was the man who picked up the first loose threads and wove them into a design for living.

The sage starts when an 18-year-old boy called Raymond Jones, walked into the Epstein family record store in Whitechapel, Liverpool, and asked for a record made in Germany by a group known as the Beatles.

Epstein, then 27, who was serving behind the counter, had never heard of them.

He was only vaguely aware that the kids of Liverpool had stopped spending their spare time on the street and had gone underground to listen to a new type of rumbustious pop music bashed out on drums and guitars, echoing with a deafening roar sound the mostly undecorated walls of the many clubs that had sprung up.

Two days later, a couple of girls asked for the same record, and Epstein found that The Beatles (”an odd and purposeless spelling,” he thought) were playing in The Cavern club.

Already loth to walk into a tangle of teenagers a decade and more younger than he, Epstein found the sweaty, greasy atmosphere of The Cavern slightly distasteful.

But he became enamoured of the four untidy boys on stage, swiping the air with their guitars and cracking jokes with the audience.

The first words spoken between them were hardly world shattering.

“Hello there,” said George Harrison. “What brings Mr. Epstein here?”

The Beatles at this time were earning 75 shillings a night each. A few weeks later Epstein offered to become their manager.

A contract was drawn up and signed - but not immediately by Epstein, who was by no means confident that he could fulfil the promises he had made to the four.

The next few weeks were ironic. People who missed out on the Beatles don’t like to be reminded of them.

Epstein touted the tapes round Decca, Pye and the Embassy record companies.

But they all turned him down.

It wasn’t until July 1962 that Epstein’s big break came. He took the tapes to Parlophone, part of the mighty E.M.I set-up - and met George Martin, who was to become almost as important to the Beatles’ development as their instruments.

Martin liked what he heard, and Epstein got a recording contract.

The first record - “Love Me Do,” with “P.S. I Love You” on the B side, was released on October 4, 1962. Beatlemania had begun.

#Brian Epstein #Daily Express #Alix Palmer #Judith Simons #1967 #60s #newspaper #The Epstein Era

15 notes · View notes

dearyallfrommatt · 5 years

Link

Alt-weeklies are dead. Blogs are dead. Bootlickers and the civility police won.

The above story from The New Republic written by Alex Pareene was brought to my Twitter world by Radley Balko, superlative journalist and maybe the only self-described libertarian I’d let thrive after the Purge. In short, it discusses the recent emasculation of Deadspin and how it’s indicative of the death of the “rude press”. That is, the elimination of smaller, shall we say less respectful outlets like Splinter and Gawker, publications that would stick their fingers into they eyes of the rich and the very much richer.

And it’s not just those web-based publications’ deaths that article warns of. It’s the slow extinction of the alt-weekly or alt-monthly, all to be replaced by boutique publications that won’t be so gauche as to upset their betters. In other words, they’ll be “civil” because “civility” might be the most important thing we’re missing in this cold, cruel world.

The first writing gig I got out of college was at an alt-monthly and the only “regular job” I’ve ever had was with an alt-weekly, so I might be a bit biased on this matter. Twenty-some-odd years ago in Gainesville, FL, a pair of cats named Colin Whitworth and Mike Podalsky started MOON Magazine, maybe the altest alternative magazine that wasn’t a ‘zine that I’ve ever seen. I mostly wrote about music and Gainesville being what it was, there wasn’t much sticking-in-the-eye that needed doing.

Though I do remember them pissing of a real estate guy so badly he started his own “alt-monthly” in competition. It lasted one issue as I recall. Every afternoon at 4:20, we'd have a “staff meeting” and the magazine run pieces from severely left-wing sources going after the destruction of the Everglades or the dangers of the Cassini probe. It was that kind of magazine.

After I left Gainesville for Athens, I took up with Flagpole Magazine, a music/news/arts weekly in Michael Stipe’s hometown. Athens is a different town and publisher Pete McCommons was a different breed. An old school newspaper man contrasted to Mike and Colin’s “young upstarts”, Flagpole was a gentler poke that nevertheless contrasted well with the bought-and-owned-by-the-chamber-of-commerce local daily, The Athens Banner-Herald. He still gave a lot of room to his staff to go nuts, notably my direct editor Ballard Lesemann.

When I left college in 1997, I had already worked in actual, for real newspapers for almost a decade. Furthermore, I’d grown my hair long and discovered Hunter Thompson, so I was by no means inclined to go back to covering school board meetings for some small town weekly. MOON went the way of the dodo sometime in 2001, and though I left in 2002, Flagpole’s still kicking.

I rarely made anything close to a living at writing, but I’m thankful of my time with the alts and grateful to Colin, Mike, Pete and Ballard for letting me share the ride with them and have a little fun. So, again, grain of salt. One thing working on alternatives taught me was that “complete objectivity” was not only impossible but unnecessary so long as your cards are on the table, so I ain’t going to put no shuck on you.

Now, I won’t summarize or really explore what the above-linked New Republic piece goes into. I highly recommend it be read and considered with much gravity. Even if you don’t agree with its conclusions - or even the need for the existence of “rude journalism” - do study on what it suggests. Do we really want a world where the extremely rich, either as individuals or as a group, can shut down publications that don’t show proper fealty and people who’re willing to tell the Boss Man to take this job and shove it?

The responses to Radley’s retweet and others I’ve seen elsewhere are telling indeed, though. While there are plenty of sympathetic voices, not a few folks are saying “well, good, fuck ‘em”. There is a negative view of journalists, but if anyone suggests that it’s caused by recent events in the business are lying or stupid or ignorant or all three. For as long as there have been rich dudes willing to start wars for more wealth, there have been plenty of poor bastards willing to die for them. Nowadays, we have folks willing to pay Major League Baseball for what they used to get for free, and not even blink an eye.

A lot of it’s political. Right-wing media doesn’t have the same problems in getting funding because, well, most rich people are quite fine with the nuts and bolts of conservative thought. The economic side, anyway, which spells less taxes or regulation; the social side, they have enough pull to not have to worry about anyone griping unless they piss off someone higher up the ladder.

Which is extremely amusing, since these are the same folks who stay constantly stricken with the vapors about how much money Hillary Clinton (or Elizabeth Warren or Barrack Obama or Bernie Sanders or fill-in-the-blank-here) bring home. The “common people”, they’re saying, don’t need hoity-toity nerds who can string sentences together and count without taking off their shoes telling us that they’re favorite rich guy needs a kick in the nuts for being the type of bastard that needs kicking in the nuts on a regular basis. The hooting baboons that support digital frat houses like Barstool are happy to stick it to those PC creeps, man, rebelling in that way that hurts the actual elite not one tiny bit.

They also hate the corporate media and social media sites, which they will tell you endlessly in the comments sections of corporate medias’ pages on social media while FOX and CNN have a special on it every other week. They hate “political correctness” trying to tell them that the “natural order” isn’t just boozy white dudes watching the Pats and gorging on chicken wings, making cracks about the opposing quarterback being homosexual or making “hey-it’s-just-a-joke” jokes about Serena Williams or some WNBA playing being a “man, baby”.

There is most definitely a place for big mainstream news sources like CNN or The New York Times or TIME Magazine. A professor of my in journalism school used to repeat the quote, paraphrased from memory, that “journalism is the first rough draft of history”. Despite what the right wing has been screaming for years, whoever the president is, the big papers are rarely out for his blood. Once you become president, you are a “Washington insider” and all the corporate media really cares about is making money.

Whatever he says about the “Washington Swamp” and “fake news”, Donald Trump’s been part of that world, as is every Washington politician or media figure. FOX News is the mainstream media and the Washington Examiner has plenty of backing to keep that so. Who funds The Federalist? That publication has its place but that question must be asked. To do otherwise is to tell the powerful that you’re just fine with them running things, thank you very much.

But there needs to be a place for a small, scrappy paper speaking for the weird and shat-upon, flicking the earlobe of the rich and powerful and running ads for weekly drag shows. The dirtbag center - that’s what I’m calling the tedious middle-class bourgeoisie spawn that all voted for Trump because they hated Hillary but don’t want to admit it and were shocked as the rest of us, deal with it - wants to be kept fat and saucy while their kids joke about “learning to code” and they all grind themselves down in a miserable existence. Sticking it to the media and the elite, man, all up in the “intellectual dark web,” man, just like Peter Thiel or Bari Weiss, man.

This is one of those things that shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does, because these people are that guy who started a one-run magazine to get back at Colin and Mike for saying hurtful things about them being crooked. In America, at least, there has always, always been a group of people who will kick down for the benefit of their upper-class betters and do it with a smile on their faces. It’s why dumbass country boys went to die for slavery and why thick-necked hardhats smashed picket lines and assassinated union leaders.

Like the story notes, we all thought that blogs would be the new hotness, but that lasted just long enough for Google to deciding that “do no evil” was bad for the bottom line. People, especially wingnuts, boo-hoo about Facebook or Twitter without acknowledging or even recognizing that Mark Zuckerberg is a greedy little shit and Jack Dorsey is quite comfortable with cosplaying Nazis. Thanks to Ajit Pai’s bought-and-sold ass, Net Neutrality - about the only thing that keeps the internet from being anything other than a glorified Want Ads - is going to be that much harder to make reality.

A lot of this goes back to the “civility” thing, or lack thereof, NYT columnists bemoan whenever they get caught out being a dipstick. We’re too mean to each other, they say, we don’t know how to respect each other, they say. Rich people know how to run things better than the hoi polloi, so do sit down and be quiet like nice children. Or else.

Because here’s the thing, friends and neighbors: the rich, I mean really rich class in this country do not give a solid gold shit about you apart from how much more money they can squeeze out. Suck up to Elon Musk all you want and bemoan Bill Gates having to pay so much in taxes that he’s still a billionaire afterwards all you want. They are not going to let you on the space ship with them once they’re done fouling the waters and scouring the land.

You can cheer the death of Deadspin all you want, hoot at the firings of journalist who say bad things about Trump or the cops or Tom Brady, and general be gleeful that the media all should “learn to code” to your heart’s content. Because it won’t end there. Conglomerations are already scooping up weekly and small town dailies, shuttering the superfluous and give everyone the same story in the same tone while kissing the proper butts.

In the end, we need an antagonistic press. We need someone willing to piss off the deep pockets and old families and moneyed interests. We need someone that’ll give a voice to left-handed, bisexual, transvestite furries who love swing dancing. Or even just a little time, a slice of acknowledgement that the world isn’t just boozy obnoxious white dudes on barstools or bitter wine moms sniping on Facebook. You can cheer the downfall of such, but all you’re doing is putting the noose around your own throat and saving the Powers That Be a little time.

You may not want to rock the boat, friends and neighbors, but have no illusions. When the rubber hits the road, the Wealthy Elite will throw you over. Don’t make it easier for them.

#business #journalism #radley balko #it came from twitter #new republic #alex pareene #the death of resisting #pat gish #tom gish #the mountain eagle

0 notes

nothingman · 7 years

Link

South Park turns 20 years old this summer, meaning that if those foulmouthed, crudely fashioned 8-year-olds that were first introduced on August 13, 1997 followed the rules of linear time, they’d all be adults farting down the barrel of 30. Similarly, there’s now an entire generation of people—spanning high-schoolers to middle-aged people who remember watching its early seasons in college, and who can’t believe they’re reading/writing 20-year retrospectives on it now—who were actually raised on South Park.

The show celebrated this existential crisis-inducing fact last year with a tongue-in-cheek ad, depicting South Park as a sort of benevolent guarantor keeping reliable watch over a girl from infancy until her first trip to college. It was a typically self-effacing joke, but it’s true: Our world is now filled with people for whom South Park has always been there, a cultural influence that, in some cases, is completely foundational to their point of view. The ad doesn’t end with the girl logging onto Twitter to complain that social justice warriors are ruining the world, but otherwise, spot on.

After all, for most of its 20 years, South Park’s own point of view has more or less been this: “Everything and everyone are full of shit—hey, relax, guy.” It’s a scorched-earth, deconstructionist approach steeped in equal-opportunity offensiveness that’s made South Park one of the funniest satires ever produced, and particularly potent in the time in which it debuted. “When we started, [it was] Beavis And Butt-Head, and us, and in some ways The Simpsons, and Married With Children—shit like that,” Matt Stone told Vanity Fair last year, putting the Comedy Central cartoon in the company of other ’90s series that diverged from the “bland… shitty sitcoms that were just so lifeless” Stone and co-creator Trey Parker were reacting against. But South Park has now lived long enough to see the experimental become the conventional. And it’s outlasted all but one of those series not just by subverting formulaic TV, but by feeding directly off current events. As a result, for many of those raised by South Park, the show has functioned as sort of a scatological op-ed—in some cases, maybe the only op-ed they’ve ever been interested in.

To these acolytes, Parker and Stone have spent two decades preaching a philosophy of pragmatic self-reliance, a distrust of elitism, in all its compartmentalized forms, and a virulent dislike of anything that smacks of dogma, be it organized religion, the way society polices itself, or whatever George Clooney is on his high horse about. Theirs can be a tricky ideology to pin down: “I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals,” Stone said once, a quote that has reverberated across the scores of articles, books, and message-board forums spent trying to parse the duo’s politics, arguing over which side can rightfully claim South Park as its own. Nominally, Parker and Stone are libertarians, professing a straight-down-the-middle empathy for the little guy who just wants to be left alone by meddling political and cultural forces. But their only true allegiance is to whatever is funniest; their only tenet is that everything and everyone has the potential to suck equally. More than anything, they’ve taught their most devoted followers that taking anything too seriously is hella lame.

So while they’ve advocated, in their own fucked-up way, for stuff like the right to abortion, drug legalization, and general tolerance for others, they’ve also found their biggest, easiest targets in liberalism’s pet causes, those formerly rebellious ideals that had become safely sitcom-bland over the Bill Clinton years—all of which were steeped in actually, lamely caring about stuff. Taking the piss out of the era’s priggish, speech-policing, Earth Day-brainwashed hippies was the most transgressive—and therefore funniest—thing you could possibly do. And so, South Park joked, global warming is just a dumb myth perpetrated by “super cereal” losers. Prius drivers are smug douches who love the smell of their own farts. Vegetarians end up growing vaginas on their face. “Transgender people” are just mixed-up, surgical abominations. The word “fag” is fine. Casual anti-Semitism is all in good fun. “Hate crimes” are silly. Maybe all you pussies just need a safe space.

“Did South Park accidentally invent the alt-right?” Janan Ganesh asked recently in the Financial Times, articulating a theory that began gaining traction as an entire political movement seemed to crystallize around the show’s “anti-PC chic” and general fuck-your-feelings attitude. Way back in 2001, political blogger Andrew Sullivan had already coined the term “South Park Republican” to describe the supposedly emerging group of young people who, like the show, were moderate on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, but also rejected the stuffy doctrines of diversity and environmentalism. They also believed, as Parker and Stone would soon illustrate in Team America: World Police, that the world needed American dicks to fuck assholes, over the objections of liberal pussies and F.A.G. celebrities. That voting bloc never actually materialized—though to be fair, the show was only four years old at the time. It would take at least another decade of people with Cartman avatars just joshin’ about hating Jews before the South Park generation would truly come of age.

Let’s be real, though. South Park didn’t “invent” the “alt-right,” even accidentally. The “alt-right” is the product of lots of things—disenfranchisement; internet echo chambers; aggrieved Gamergaters; boredom; the same ugly, latent racism that’s coursed beneath civilization’s veneer for millennia; etc. The growing, bipartisan distaste for Wall Street-backed career politicians and the epically bungled machinations of the Democratic Party certainly didn’t help, nor did the frustrating inability of the social justice movement to pick its battles—or its enemies. Furthermore, it’s always dangerous to assign too much influence to pop culture, even something that’s been part of our lives for this long. And as South Park itself derided in “The Tale Of Scrotie McBoogerballs,” you shouldn’t go looking for deep sociopolitical messages in your cartoon dick jokes. (Then again, only three years earlier, it also argued that imaginary characters really can change people’s lives and even “change the way [you] act on Earth,” making them “more realer” than any of us—so you decide.)

Still, it’s not that much of a stretch to see how one might have fed the other, if only through the sort of intangible osmosis that happens whenever an influential artwork spawns imitators, both on screen and off. South Park may not have “invented” the “alt-right,” but at their roots are the same bored, irritated distaste for politically correct wokeness, the same impish thrill at saying the things you’re not supposed to say, the same button-pushing racism and sexism, now scrubbed of all irony.

There’s also the same co-opting of anti-liberal stances as the highest possible form of rebellion: Parker and Stone used to brag that they were “punk rock” for telling their Hollywood friends how much they loved George W. Bush; Parker even told Rolling Stone in 2007, “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, ‘Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you’re a pierced faggot and whatever’”—a quote that may as well have been taken from 4chan’s /pol/ board this morning. “Conservatism is the new punk rock,” echoed a bunch of human cringes a decade later. Whatever, you faggot, a dozen Pepes tweeted a few seconds ago.

But well beyond the ��alt-right,” South Park’s influence echoes through every modern manifestation of the kind of hostile apathy—nurtured along by Xbox Live shit-talk and comment-board flame wars and Twitter—that’s mutated in our cultural petri dish to create a rhetorical world where whoever cares, loses. Today, everyone with any kind of grievance probably just has sand in their vagina; expressing it with anything beyond a reaction GIF means you’re “whining”; cry more, your tears are delicious. We live in Generation U Mad Bro, and from its very infancy, South Park has armed it with enough prefab eye-rolling retorts (“ManBearPig!” “I’m a dolphin!” “Gay Fish!” “…’Member?”) to sneeringly shut down discussions on everything from climate change and identity politics to Kanye West and movie reboots. Why not? Everything sucks equally, anyway. Voting is just choosing between some Douche and a Turd Sandwich. Bullying is just a part of life. Suck it up and take it, until it’s your turn to do the bullying. Relax, guy.

Again, it’s a world that South Park didn’t create intentionally, just by setting out to make us laugh, or by Parker and Stone trying to get rich off a bunch of farting construction paper cutouts. But even Parker and Stone seem slightly, if only occasionally uneasy about the overarching life lessons they’ve imparted—often expressing that anxiety in the show itself. In “You’re Getting Old,” South Park’s most moving half-hour, Parker and Stone grappled directly with the cumulative effects of perpetually shitting on things—of allowing a healthy, amused skepticism to ossify into cynicism and self-satisfied superiority, then into nihilism, then into blanket, misanthropic hatred. That dark night of the soul later formed the through-lines of seasons 19 and 20, where South Park wryly, semi-sincerely confronted the series’ place as a “relic from another time” by putting the town under the heavy thumb of PC Principal.

Then—after hooking its red-pilled fans with an extended critique of the emptiness of neoliberalism, epitomized by a sneering, “safe space”-mocking character that was literally named Reality—it tried confronting the audience who had most embraced their ramped-up anti-PC crusades. Last season kicked off with Cartman admitting to Kyle, “We’re two privileged, straight white boys who have their laughs about things we never had to deal with,” a confession rendered only slightly tongue-in-cheek by the fact of who was saying it. And it culminated in Gerald, who’d spent the year gleefully harassing people online, squaring off with the Danish prime minister, a stand-in for every troll the show’s ever nurtured:

I want to stand here and tell you that you and I are different, but it’s not true. All we’ve been doing is making excuses for being horrible people. I don’t know if you tried to teach me a lesson, but you have. I have to stand here and look at you. And all I see is a big fat reflection of myself.

Ultimately, of course, Gerald comes to a familiar conclusion: “Fuck you, what I do is fucking funny, bitch!” he cries, before kicking the prime minister in the balls. Fair enough. South Park is, and always will be, funnier than any of the maladjusted creeps who have spent decades internalizing the show’s many false equivalencies and ironic racism, then lazily regurgitating them in an attempt to mimic its edginess—or worse, by treating them as some sort of scripture for living. And to be certain, there are millions of Poe’s law-defying viewers for whom South Park really is just a comedy, one that satisfies the most basic requirement of saying the things you shouldn’t say, in a far more clever way than you could say them. But regardless of their satirical intent, or the humanity that grounds even their nastiest attacks, it’s clear that even Parker and Stone sometimes question the influence they’ve had on the world, and who is and isn’t in on the joke.

Which brings us (as all 2017 articles must) to Donald Trump, the ultimate troll, and one that Parker sees as a natural outgrowth of South Park’s appeal to a nation bored with politeness. As he recently told the Los Angeles Times:

He’s not intentionally funny but he is intentionally using comedic art to propel himself. The things that we do—being outrageous and taking things to the extreme to get a reaction out of people—he’s using those tools. At his rallies he gets people laughing and whooping. I don’t think he’s good at it. But it obviously sells—it made him president.

Trump’s blithe offensiveness, rampant narcissism, and faith that everyone but him is stupid makes him a natural analog to Eric Cartman. But instead, South Park made him into Mr. Garrison—a decision that makes some logical sense (Mr. Garrison is of constitutional age, hates Mexicans and women, and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself), though it also felt a bit like dissembling. Nevertheless, as the election wore on, South Park again seemed to acknowledge its role in helping to create a world where someone like Trump could seem like an exciting, entertaining alternative to conventional blandness. And it made a real, concerted effort to stymie any suggestion of support by having Garrison declare repeatedly that he was “a sick, angry little man” who “will fuck this country up beyond repair,” all while openly mocking those who still loved him anyway as nostalgia-drunk idiots.

“Is it just me or has South Park gone full cuck?” wondered fans on Reddit’s The_Donald immediately after that episode aired, and probably not for the first (or last) time. But in the aftermath of Trump/Garrison’s election, those same, vigilant cuck-watchers were back to crowing over how South Park had really stuck it to politically correct types in a scene where Trump/Garrison tells PC Principal, “You helped create me.” That South Park positioned this as less of a triumphant comeuppance than a suicidal backfire didn’t seem to matter. And the show more or less left it there—portraying Trump/Garrison as a dangerously incompetent buffoon, but also as the ultimate “u mad?” to all those liberals they fucking hate.

All of which makes Parker and Stone’s recent declaration to lay off Trump in the coming 21st season a real disappointment at best, cowardice at worst. The duo is, of course, under no obligation to tackle politics—or anything else they don’t want to, for that matter. They’re also right that mocking Trump is both redundant and “boring,” and also that everyone does it. For two dyed-in-the-wool contrarians, Trump comedy feels every bit as bland, lifeless, and sitcom-safe as an episode of, say, Veronica’s Closet. Furthermore, Parker’s complaints of the show just “becoming CNN now” and not wanting to spend every week endlessly restacking the sloppy Jenga pile of Trump-related outrage is completely understandable. Believe me, I get it.

That said: Man, what a cop out. South Park has already spent the past 20 years being CNN for its CNN-hating audience. Meanwhile, Parker and Stone have proudly, loudly thumped for a “fearless” brand of satire that’s willing to mock everyone from George W. Bush to Scientology to Mormonism to Muhammad, even under death threats. To shrug now and say, as Parker did, “I don’t give a shit anymore”—right when, by their own admission, the influence of the show’s worldview has reached all the way to the White House—feels especially disingenuous, and suspiciously like caving to the young, Trump-loving fans with whom they have forged such an uneasy relationship. (“South Park bends the knee on their fake-news-fueled portrayal of President Trump,” one The_Donald post gloated, followed by many, many more.) If they truly believe that those trolls in the mirror are “horrible people” who are helping to “fuck the country up beyond repair,” it would be truly fearless to tell them why, with no hint of ambiguous, everything-sucks irony that can be willfully misinterpreted.

Instead, Parker now says he’s eager to get back to “the bread and butter of South Park: kids being kids and being ridiculous and outrageous.” Which is great! South Park is absolutely at its best when it focuses on that stuff, and I look forward to watching it all on my hurting butt. Still, after 20 years, even they seem to realize that many of those ridiculous, outrageous kids for whom it’s “always been there” have long since grown up—and some of them have gone on to do some real, destructive adult shit. Like their inspirations, South Park’s generation of trolls are tiny but loud, and they’ve had the strange effect of changing the world. It sure would be nice if South Park would grow up as well and take responsibility for them.

Or, you know, maybe I just have sand in my vagina.

via A.V. Club

#IFTTT #Feedly #Nothingman uses feedly

39 notes · View notes

joshuajacksonlyblog · 5 years

Text

Pelosi’s Challenger Agatha Bacelar on Bitcoin as an Agent for Social Change

Typically, it’s the kid who tells their parents about Bitcoin, but for U.S. Democratic Congressional candidate Agatha Bacelar, it was the other way around.

“It first started with my dad. He read the Satoshi white paper really early on, before the mainstream knew about it. At first it was just him talking about it, and at first I didn’t know whether to believe him or follow this groundbreaking technology,” she told us on the Bitcoin Magazine Podcast.

This was in 2011, when Bitcoin was still largely an obscurity. I joked with her that she’s a bit of a Bitcoin O.G. (though she noted with humor that she’s not BTC rich), which is curious given that the news of her campaign accepting cryptocurrency donations would paint her as something of a newcomer.

On the contrary, she said that she acquired her first coins during her sophomore year at Stanford University and took the proverbial dive down the Satoshi rabbit hole. But instead of viewing Bitcoin through a strictly Austrian lens for its impact on monetary economics, she saw it, perhaps somewhat uniquely, as a tool for progressive social change.

“I read the paper, saw its potential for actually starting a social justice movement. I didn’t see it as much as an economic tool,” she said during the interview.

Bitcoin and Blockchains for Social Good

Andreas Antonopoulos once said in a Bitcoin Magazine interview that Bitcoin’s “post-modern” and “mirror-like capability” means that folks “tend to reflect onto Bitcoin their preconceived politics.” This, as with the stereotypical Libertarian-anarchic cultures that originally gravitated to Bitcoin, could rightly be applied to Bacelar.

The 27-year-old is part of a rising faction of progressive young talent that is shaking the ranks of the Democratic party. For her part, she’s challenging Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (California’s 12th district incumbent with more than 30 years of uninterrupted tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives) for a Democratic seat in Congress.

Running as she is on a hyper-progressive platform which advocates for single-payer healthcare and the Green New Deal, her left-leaning mores have blended themselves with Bitcoin’s open-source ethos. She believes that cryptocurrency contributions could inject some much-needed transparency into the election process. This is a fitting view for a woman who has rejected taking any money from Super PACs, positioning herself against an incumbent who courts more corporate dollars than most of her peers.

“Politics is run by dark money, run by private ledgers and super PACs and shell [organizations] where you can’t trace the money and see where it comes from,” Bacelar said.

Bitcoin and Empowerment

Juxtaposed against political “dark money” system is one that uses a public ledger. With Bitcoin and its blockchain, we can trace funds and keep tabs on the source of campaign funds, while circumventing centralized contribution hubs like ACT Blue, a donations platform responsible for processing a majority of credit/debit payments for Democratic candidates in the U.S.

The Bitcoin donation option hasn’t become very popular, Bacelar thinks, because it was only made legal a few years ago, and most members of Congress are too old to be privy to it or see its benefits. After all, in some regards, a technology for self-empowerment isn’t exactly in the interests of the powers-that-be.

Bacelar expressed that, as technologies, Bitcoin and blockchain are all about empowerment so, naturally, they lend themselves to the same truth-to-power ethos that America’s other social movements emphasized.

“I view this similarly to the civil rights movement,” she said. “I think it’s hard for people to believe that we can create our own tools for liberation. If you look at the civil rights movement, it was so hard for segregationists, it was so hard for them to believe that black people create and lead their own movement and liberation.”

Democracy Earth

Bacelar sees blockchain technology’s benefit to society extending beyond Bitcoin and, per her comment about viewing it first as an agent for social movements, she has for some time.

This perspective is what led her to co-found Democracy.Earth with her father, Herb Stephens, as well as Santiago Siri and Glen Weyl. She met Siri and Weyl while working at the Emerson Collective, an LLC for incubating tools and services for social good. They were pitching the idea, known as DemocracyOS at the time, to Y Combinator and other incubators, including the Emerson Collective.

“I think I was the only one who got what they were talking about,” she said, referring to her alignment with Siri’s and Weyl’s optimism in blockchain technology’s latent potential for social change. “If you really read the origin of where this movement started, blockchain was created for the people. To move power away from larger centralized, corrupt institutions. To give the power to people to have their own keys to their data, their money, and to be able to publically audit information. In today’s world, all corruption occurs on private ledgers — banking, the finance industry or voting.”

Voting and Blockchain Applications

Right now, voters in U.S. elections can’t verify or double check how votes are tallied and allocated, and Bacelar believes that blockchain technology holds the answer. Others question the technology’s viability for this oft-touted application, and they raise concerns over personal device security, identity verification, anonymity and sybil attacks. Bacelar acknowledges that these are indeed obstacles, but she also believes that the technology needs time to grow before we say it can’t stand on its own two feet.

“I’d say we’re early for now,” she said. “I don’t think this is going to happen this year — the technology’s pretty far out. There are concerns over onboarding, how do you verify a person, sybil attacks. All of those things need to be figured out, and I’d say that proving identity and verifying that someone is human are the biggest bottlenecks. Another thing we need to work on is: How do you onboard someone seamlessly?”

Addressing Cryptocurrency “Brain Drain” in the U.S.

No coder herself, Bacelar doesn’t have immediate answers to these problems, so she trusts that the technology will evolve to address them, as those building it iron out the kinks. If she gets elected to Congress, though, she’ll be focusing on the cryptocurrency problems she does have answers to, such as addressing the “brain drain” that the cryptocurrency tech sector is facing in the U.S. in response to murky regulations.

Citing her own experience at the Silicon Valley Blockchain society, Bacelar noted that “their official recommendation is to not start a blockchain company in the U.S. They tell you to go to Switzerland.”

She believes that solutions like Singapore’s regulatory sandbox, which allows projects to launch on a limited basis while they receive approval, could work well in the U.S. as regulators and legislators work on providing clearer guidelines for cryptocurrency startups.

“First start with an open mind and don’t cast off cryptocurrency as a technology that needs to get banned … oftentimes, this comes from a place of ignorance or fear,” she said, pointing to bills floating in Congress right now that would deal with cryptocurrency by banning it outright.

After all, Bitcoin doesn’t care if you ban it — and if Capitol Hill is not on board with the revolution, it’ll just happen without (and despite) it.

The post Pelosi’s Challenger Agatha Bacelar on Bitcoin as an Agent for Social Change appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2IFWZlx via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken Tumblr

0 notes