#radical capital

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Bezzle excerpt (Part VI)

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in LA (Saturday night, with Adam Conover), Seattle (Monday, with Neal Stephenson), then Portland, Phoenix and more!

It's launch-week for my new novel The Bezzle, a high-tech, revenge-soaked crime thriller in which my intrepid forensic accountant Martin Hench must pit his wits against unbelievably evil (and sadly true-to-life) prison-tech grifters:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

As part of the launch, I'm serializing part of Chapter 14, a side-plot about music royalty theft and the (again, sadly true-to-life) corruption of the LA Sheriffs Deputies, who are organized into criminal gangs that murder, run drugs and intimidate with impunity:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/deputy-gangs-cancer-los-angeles-county-sheriffs-department-scathing-re-rcna73367

Today marks the sixth and final installment of the serial, but you can hear me read more of the book. Just show up at one of the stops on my book tour! Tomorrow (Feb 24) in LA, I'm appearing on Saturday evening with AdamC onover at Vroman's:

https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cory-Doctorow-discusses-The-Bezzle<

And then on Monday I'll be in Seattle at Third Place Books with Neal Stephenson:

https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow

From there, I'm off to Portland, Phoenix, Tucson and points further:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

Here's part one of the serial:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease

Part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#copyright-termination

Part three:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/20/fore/#lawyer-up

Part four:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#poacher-turned-keeper

Part five:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/22/self-censorship/#acab

And now, the thrilling conclusion!

Benedetto was outraged by my face and swore he’d sue the Sheriff’s Department on my behalf. He got even angrier when I got stopped again, the following week, as I was leaving my concussion checkup at the Kaiser hospital on Sunset by a sheriff’s deputy who had me pull over in front of the big Scientology building. This deputy was a little bantam rooster of a fellow, with a shiny bald head and mirror shades and no neck. He strutted up to my car, got me out of it, ran my ID, and frisked me. “Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?” he said. He had that cop knack for making “sir” sound like “motherfucker.”

“No, sir,” I said, trying it out myself.

He didn’t like that and leaned in close enough for me to smell his aftershave and the scented sunscreen on his bare scalp.

“I stopped you, sir, because you were using your phone while driving.”

I must have looked surprised.

“I personally saw you tapping at your phone screen. That is a misdemeanor, sir. Reckless driving.”

He stopped as if waiting for me to respond. I made myself go mild. “Sir, I did not use my phone.”

He was waiting for that. He narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer. “Are you telling me I didn’t see what I saw?”

Mild, Marty, mild. “I don’t know what you saw, sir, but I didn’t use my phone.”

He rocked back and tilted his head. Patients went by with crutches and walkers. Nurses and doctors passed in scrubs. Scientologists scurried in and out of their gigantic temple. A fruit cart man labored past us.

“Well, sir, this should be simple enough to resolve.” He reached for his belt and pulled out a generic ruggedized cop-­rectangle of gear, and unspooled a multiheaded cable from its side. He leaned into the rental and retrieved my phone, and squinted at its I/O port, then attached the cable to my phone. The rugged rectangle beeped. “I’m gathering forensics on your mobile device, sir,” he said.

I’d figured that out already. My phone—­like yours and ­everyone else’s—­was a trove of my most intimate information, a record of all the places I’d been and people I’d spoken to and all the things I’d said to them. It was full of photos and passwords and client files and voice memos. It was more information than any judge would have granted a warrant for on a reckless-­driving rap.

The little man smirked as he held my phone and his gadget. I stayed mild as milk. I was running full-­device encryption. I’m no computer security expert, but I spend a lot of time around them, and they’d been insistent on this point, and had made reference to this very scenario in describing why I would bother to dig around my phone’s settings to turn this on.

God, my face hurt. I didn’t know how long the gadget was supposed to take, but from the cop’s increasing impatience, I could tell it was going long.

Beep. The cop shaded the gadget’s little screen from the punishing LA sun with one hand and peered at it.

“Sir, I need you to unlock this device, please.”

My face hurt. Be mild, Marty. “I invoke my right to counsel,” I said.

He pursed his lips. “Sir, if you would please enter your unlock code, we can verify whether your device is in use and we can both be on our way.”

“I invoke my right to remain silent.” I said it straight into his bodycam.

He sighed and looked irritated. I had known Benedetto for so long that I had once had to dial his number from a landline. I’d long ago memorized his office’s number, 1–­800-­LAWER4U. He’d bought it early, back before 800 numbers got expensive, and he’d had plenty of offers for it. He’d kept it.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/23/gazeteer/#fin

[nando161mando]

This couldn't have happened to more deserving people

[logorrhea5mip]

Sorry for the bad photo quality, Tumblr doesn't like posts this long.

[lilithism1848]

[missmisandrytabletalk]

one of the myriad things that I vehemently want the 5th wave of feminism to achieve is getting pornography and prostitution/sex work banned from the face of this planet. like get every porn site wiped off from the internet. and yes that includes getting rid of the OF too. we've seen enough of the capitalisation of sex or precisely of women & young girls. I mean after a noticeably exponential increase in the cases of sex/child trafficking from the past many years, it leaves us no choice but to eradicate it once and for all.

[bluemoontarot]

I have found that the biggest deterrent to assholes is asking "why?" Over and over.

"We can't have universal healthcare!"

Why?

"Because I don't wanna pay for a strangers health!"

Why?

"Because if they can't afford their own health care that isn't my problem!"

Why?

And so on and so on. Keep making them dig. Keep making them explain until they can't anymore and are faced with nothing but the ugly mask of bias and prejudice. Only then can they truly see that taking it off is an option. Whether they do or not is up to them. And that choice tells you whether they deserve more of your energy or not.

Trans kids can't be trans. Why? Why not? Why?

Free food is bad for ppl. Why? Why? Why? Why is feeding ppl bad?

Why?

Why is helping one another bad?

Why is doing what humans are genetically designed to do, to help and care for one another to ensure survival, bad?

[certainradfemdeer]

Binder company untag.com posts shit like this to deliberately trigger young girls body dysmorphia just so they can sell some more fucking binders

[sapphsorrows]

cosmetic plastic surgeons do not give a fuck about you. their offices are like assembly lines. they do not care about you. they do not care about your feelings. they only care about how much money they can make off of your insecurities.

this especially includes so-called "gender affirming" cosmetic surgeons. "oh i found this great surgeon who affirms me" no you did not. you found a snakeoil salesman who is going to have you chasing a dragon you will never catch.

[decolonize-the-left]

ahbeeolah

Posting this vid cuz I've noticed the behavior mentioned is rampant on Tumblr which prides itself as being full of progressives, allies, and being diverse. And Tumblr, especially white tumblr has a massive problem with tokenizing and censoring Black women and especially politically vocal Black women who refuse to be tone policed or quiet.

[burningtheroots]

IDK who made this but it couldn’t be more true.

[radfem-vex]

I've noticed there is no concrete radical feminist symbol 🤔

The existing symbols either have a specific meaning that doesn't mean "radical feminism" (such as the labrys lesbian flag being associated with radfem but doesn't mean radfem) or they are indistinguishable from a mainstream feminism symbol.

So I've decided to create one! I have put together a few versions with different colours. If you want a different colour (up to two colours) just ask me (via comments/reblogs)! Feel free to ask with hex codes also.

Image descriptions on alt text.

Here are the non-transparent PNG versions:

1.

This is the basic black one on a white background, where a female symbol ♀️ contains a radical √. √ also means root which is the type of "radical" used in "radical feminism." Radfem isn't about "extremism" (the other meaning of radical) but rather is about destroying patriarchy at the root.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Here are the transparent PNG versions:

1.

2.

3.

4.

(Remaining 2 images continued on reblog)

[tiredbiird]

i really do not believe one can be an anticapitalist trans person

y’all literally think your identity can be bought though cosmetic surgeries, makeup and commodities such as binders or shapewear

[rainbowpopeworld]

Super helpful comic by @deannazandt

Full image descriptions by the author here and in the alt text

[lilithism1848]

[nando161mando]

[radicalgraff]

"Capital is vulnerable when we are determined to act"

Seen in Kansas City, Missouri