Anyone who’s remained stubbornly single through their 20s (or refuses to marry, or legally can’t) knows the financial woes of helping your friends “build a new life together!”: the numerous pre-parties (and required gifts), followed by the wedding (travel, hotel, clothes, and an even nicer gift). Marriage, in Western culture, operates on the model that a new couple needs “one of everything” in order to make a home, and should keep buying until they get it—and all those fancy cupcakes require lots of cooking gear too.
Common sense, in other words, is not so much a worldview as a grab bag of logically inconsistent, often contradictory beliefs, each of which seems right at the time but carries no guarantee of being right any other time.
When is it cultural appropriation and when is it just kids playing dress-up? | Offbeat Empire
Cultural appropriation continues to be a really complex topic for me. I thought the multiple sides of this discussion were a good glimpse of a portion of it.
Body Hair debate on Irish Talkshow
Actually not sure if this is a debate or if the talkshow is Irish (I just know Emer is an Irish name).
Fascinating nonetheless, and awesome that the hairy girl in question is so well-spoken. I’m not sure I’m glad or appalled that this is on television.
Source: youtube.com
The danger the corporate state faces does not come from the poor. The poor, those Karl Marx dismissed as the Lumpenproletariat, do not mount revolutions, although they join them and often become cannon fodder. The real danger to the elite comes from déclassé intellectuals, those educated middle-class men and women who are barred by a calcified system from advancement. Artists without studios or theaters, teachers without classrooms, lawyers without clients, doctors without patients and journalists without newspapers descend economically. They become, as they mingle with the underclass, a bridge between the worlds of the elite and the oppressed. And they are the dynamite that triggers revolt. This is why the Occupy movement frightens the corporate elite. What fosters revolution is not misery, but the gap between what people expect from their lives and what is offered. This is especially acute among the educated and the talented. They feel, with much justification, that they have been denied what they deserve. They set out to rectify this injustice. And the longer the injustice festers, the more radical they become.
Chris Hedges (via azspot)
The truth of this statement is astounding. The corporate elite should be afraid because not only do we have the numbers on our side, we have morality and equality on our side as well.
(via questionall)
Interesting idea - something to think about. I’ve been largely combining what is referred to here as the poor and the educated middle class as the “working class” as a whole. What’s interesting to me is the idea of blogging and social media, which I suppose is more likely to happen among the middle classes (maybe that’s a rude assumption though - historically it was the lower classes involved in struggle that put out newspapers, spread the word, and in some cases further educated themselves for the struggle). Hmmm..
(via sociolab)
Source: truthdig.com
Make no mistake: all this Ayn Rand libertarian me-first-and-the-rest-of-you-go-to-hell stuff — the there’s-no-government-like-no-government theology that’s now being piously intoned as Holy Received Truth by everybody, male and female, in the GOP — is, very precisely, the kind of politics you’d come up with if you were a 16-year-old boy trying to explain away his dependence on Mom.
Source: alternet.org
A Comprehensive FAQ on Anarchism - Infoshop.com
“Proletarians of the world, look into the depths of your own beings, seek out the truth and realise it yourselves: you will find it nowhere else”
- Peter Arshinov, The History of the Makhnovist MovementThis FAQ was written by anarchists across the world in an attempt to present anarchist ideas and theory to those interested in it. It is a co-operative effort, produced by a (virtual) working group and it exists to present a useful organising tool for anarchists on-line and, hopefully, in the real world. It desires to present arguments on why you should be an anarchist as well as refuting common arguments against anarchism and other proposed solutions to the social problems we face.
As anarchist ideas seem so at odds with “common-sense” (such as “of course we need a state and capitalism”) we need to indicate why anarchists think like we do. Unlike many political theories, anarchism rejects flip answers and instead bases its ideas and ideals in an in-depth analysis of society and humanity. In order to do both anarchism and the reader justice we have summarised our arguments as much as possible without making them simplistic. We know that it is a lengthy document and may put off the casual observer but its length is unavoidable.
Readers may consider our use of extensive quoting as being an example of a “quotation [being] a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself.” (A.A. Milne) This is not the case of course. We have included extensive quotations by many anarchist figures for three reasons. Firstly, to indicate that we are not making up our claims of what certain anarchists thought or argued for. Secondly, and most importantly, it allows us to link the past voices of anarchism with its present adherents. And lastly, the quotes are used for their ability to convey ideas succinctly rather than as an appeal to “authority.”
Source: amodernmanifesto
WHOA WHOA WHOA THERE. HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?? IS THAT ROB? OUR BRO? IN A FUCKING SKIRT AND BRA AND SHIT? YOU FUCKING BET IT IS.
DOES THIS MEAN YOU SHOULD STOP USING MALE PRONOUNS, BECAUSE I’VE TAKEN PART IN SOMETHING STEREOTYPICALLY FEMALE? FUCK NO! YOU SHOULD RESPECT MY PRONOUN CHOICE NO MATTER HOW I AM PRESENTING MYSELF, UNTIL I SPECIFICALLY ASK YOU TO CHANGE PRONOUNS!
DOES THIS MEAN, BECAUSE I AM (FAAB)ULOUS AND PARTAKING IN STEREOTYPICALLY FEMALE ACTIVITY, THAT I AM FEMALE? DOES IT MEAN I AM REJECTING MY GENDERQUEERITY OR MAKING MY GENDER IDENTITY ILLEGITIMATE? FUCK NO! IT MEANS I WANNA WEAR A FUCKING SKIRT, SON!
DOES THIS MEAN YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO FEEL COMFORTABLE IN A SKIRT BECAUSE CLOTHES ARE GENDERLESS? FUCK NO! IF IT ISN’T FOR YOU, IT ISN’T FOR YOU!
Love, love, love, love this. Granted, gender ambiguity (to the mainstream folk this mean you see a girl dressing like a girl and wanting to be seen as a guy dressing like a girl and asking for the male pronouns) will probably get a bit confusing for awhile - but it’s beautiful. And we’ll get to a point where people are just people. For now, it’s all colors and I love it.
(via genderqueer)
Source: robbicide
Some of the best recent photojournalism of mothers…
(1) Sana’a, Yemen. In this year’s World Press Photo award winning photograph, a mother comforts her injured son after anti-government protests clashed with security. Credit: Samuel Aranda. Via.
(2) Yida refugee camp, South Sudan. A woman from the Nuba Mountains holds her child at the refugee camp registration center, having escaped the airstrikes from Sudan. Credit: Ohanesian/AFP/Getty. Via.
(3) Lahore, Pakistan. May Day protesters gather in the capital of Punjab province. Credit: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty. Via.
(4) A Pakistani girl held by her mother follow a man down an alley of a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, the nation’s capital. Credit: Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press. Via.
Source: thepoliticalnotebook
