RedEmmaSpeaks

RedEmmaSpeaks wrote

I have a difficult time working up much outrage in all this. How different is this from the Rich's usual tactics for stacking the deck when it comes to colleges? There's the good old fashioned Legacy admission, but probably colleges will find it easy to relax its standards when some rich fart whips out their checkbooks. If nothing else, they can afford the best tutors and advisors to help their kid properly package themselves, so as to better convince schools to admit li'l princess or prince.

The Rich have long stacked everything, including education, in their favor. This latest scam isn't really anything new.

Heck, I'd be really shocked if anyone faces much by way of consequences. I doubled over laughing when some news pundit said something along the lines of "They may be able to buy their way into college, but they can't use that money to buy their way out of jail." Seriously, what's the rent like on the rock they've been living under?

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote

I too, get more than just a little suspicious about discussions about civilization. Given that the term has so long been tied up with racist, jingoistic BS, it's hard to hold any discussions, because you can't entirely be sure what definition the other person is using. You have to dig deep into the surrounding text, really read between the lines, to understand what definition they're using, because without this understanding, these discussions are very tricky.

If we are defining civilization as "a group of people with a shared way of life/beliefs about the way the world works and the upbringing of children," then just about every group of people qualify, including tribes in the Amazon. If, however, our definition of civilization necessitates a massive hierarchy with vast disparities of wealth between various levels of society, then you understand why the Western World has long taken a dim view of indigenous groups.

Though when we talk about indigenous peoples, we must be careful to remember that they didn't have just one way of life; they had many. Some of them were nomadic, while others, the extent of their wanderings was they had a summer home and a winter home which they traveled between. Others were semi-nomadic, living in one place until the land is used up, then moving to some place else, coming back to original location a few generations later, after the land has had time to heal.

Indigenous tribes' lifestyles depended on where they lived. They were smart enough to know that a one-size-fits-all standard of living (where everyone has the same kind of houses, eats the same food, does the same kind of work), doesn't work. Really, the only way so-called Civilized Man has made it work is with the help of a state powered by vast infusions of nonrenewable resources.

Then again, I also find these discussions somewhat limiting, because they too often, seem to operate under the either/or mindset, where we can either have the cool tech of today or live like cavemen pounding on stuff with rocks. There's no reason we can't meet halfway, figure out how to marry the old and the new. I'm a firm believer in "Hold onto what works and jettison what doesn't."

In any case, people will still create art and take care of each other, regardless of what new civilization comes about.

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote (edited )

Obviously, we need more than reform, but I support politicians like AOC nonetheless. However satisfying it may be to send everything crashing down, the truth is the rich and the powerful would mostly escape the chaos that followed. It will be the most vulnerable, the poor, disabled, minority groups, who will suffer horribly. We'd eventually recover, but it would be a long time and again, vulnerable groups of people would suffer and die.

Ideally, our culture will come to its senses and dismantle this system that's killing us, before it comes crashing down and kills even more, but in the mean time, whatever staves off a collapse and gives us more time to prepare for the inevitable crash, is a good thing. Inadequate protection is still better than no protection whatsoever. As a White Female, I'm not facing the same kind of dangers as some minority groups, but others aren't so lucky; any protection or time we can get for the vulnerable, is a good thing. Any obstacles you can throw in the path of fascists like Trump, however small, is a good thing. Even if they do get past it, slowing them down still probably bought more time for others to escape.

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote

My anarchy vision for the future is already based more on a tribal-band form of living, because I am totally of the Small is Beautiful mindset. The tribes may form alliances with other tribes, but they'd be more Iroquois Confederation-style alliances, where while there's a common code/law that unites the tribes, each one still maintains its own sovereignty and can conduct their own affairs as they see fit, so long as it doesn't interfere with the lives of the other tribes. As tribes, stuff would be voted on and decided on by the adult members of the tribes. I guess that qualifies that as democracy, but I'm not sure.

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RedEmmaSpeaks OP wrote

Only in White Girl Liberalism can racism be seen as one of those issues where people can agree to disagree on, because apparently this is one of things akin to someone liking pistachio ice cream, while someone else hates it.

Some people believe that all people, regardless of age, race, gender, religious beliefs, or orientation, are human beings and deserving of the rights that come with it. While some people only think that full humanity belongs to those who are White, Christian, and Male, and anyone else should just die. Sometimes you've gotta agree to disagree, am I right? Compromise is key to healthy relationships. :eyeroll:

Though while chica bends over backwards to defend Adolf Hipster, wait until she crosses him in the slightest and discovers he won't do the same for her. The respect of Toxic Neo-Nazi Fucks is ALWAYS conditional. Once you've lost their respect for whatever reason, even if it's just existing, they will not stop going after you; they will never relent.

It's what Philosophy Tube said in his video (which everyone should watch) "The Philosophy of Antifa:" If you decide to stop being a fascist, anti-fascists will leave you alone. They may not like you or want to have a beer in a pub with you, but they will leave you alone. Whereas if you cross a fascist in any way, they will not stop until you have ceased to exist.

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote

Here's a video of the Dapper Richard Spencer getting the shit-eating grin punched off his smug face. Because any discussion about him, benefits from a video of the punch. It's propaganda of the deed done right and a reminder that the dragon is actually a coward, the monster has feet of clay, and can be easily defeated.

https://youtu.be/fErUIxAK2HA

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote

During the Eisenhower administration, we had a tax rate of 90%. You wanna know what happened? We had a nightmarish era of peace and prosperity during which we built most of our infrastructure and implement programs that enabled us to beat Russia to the moon in the the sixties.

Heck, during the era of Republican Jesus, I mean, Reagan, tax rate was about 60%, so she's not too far off.

I have made this statement before and will probably make it many times once more: Eisenhower was the last Republican president who didn't leave his country in worse shape than it was when he took office. I know about his rule in CIA-orchestrated coups, but again, feel that the good mostly outweighed the bad. When the governor of Arkansas refused to comply with court orders to integrate his schools, Eisenhower was the one who dispatched the 101st Airborne to protect the students and force the schools to integrate, thus :gasp: overriding Arksansas's State Right to be an asshole to black people.

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote

Since counting your pennies won't do jack if you get sick, I say go ahead and enjoy the little comforts you can, the little stuff that makes a difficult life easier to bear. Have that fancy latte, eat at McDonald's. Because again, you can't sack away enough nickels and dimes to pay for medical care, and it also doesn't do you much good when it comes to rent and auto repairs. Don't let some rich asshole shame you, because you want to eat something besides ramen noodles every now and then.

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote (edited )

Here's a basic Yellow Vests 101 video. Again, I'm still cautious, because working class movements almost invariably involve racism in the modern era. Then again, Working Class is one of those terms I'm just generally sick of, because working class is usually code for "white men." Apparently women and PoC don't work; we make our living accusing innocent white men of sexual assault and sponging off welfare. Who knew?

https://youtu.be/zn_GHA850eQ

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote (edited )

I've been kind of concerned about this movement. I hope it is a genuine movement on behalf of the common people, but gods almighty, I've more or less gotten suspicious of any movement where the words "populist" or "nationalist" are used. Maybe those words once had neutral or positive meanings, but now both are pretty much code words for White Supremacy. So I'm worried that while this may bear some of the trappings of a genuine workers' rights movement, it'll eventually break into yet another White Supremacy, Neo-Nazi movement.

Because the idea that both White people and PoC work hard and are being screwed over by those in power? That's unpossible.

Of all the strategies the ruling classes have used to keep the 99% divided, racism may be one of the best, most effective ones. Even now, the general idea is that all workers are racist, even though the fuckers driving this Nazi revival, are about as Working Class as Donald Trump is. Or in other words, they're people born into upper-middle to upper class backgrounds who want to pretend that they are jes' plain folks, even though they haven't spent more than a day in a working class community.

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RedEmmaSpeaks wrote

It's why I like the ideas behind Solarpunk so much better. Too often we wind up in debates about technology, and it always seems to get reduced to a simplistic dichotomy where we can either have our amazing tech and all it brings or go back to living like caveman. The idea is ludicrous on the surface. It assumes that we have an all-or-nothing choice in all this.

But there is no reason it has to be like that, no reason we can't take the old and marry it with the new. Hold onto what works, but jettison what doesn't. Clinging to traditions without thought is stupid, but completely throwing all ideas out the window without bothering to study them is stupid as well.

For example, when it comes to medicine, we can hold onto what we've learned regarding germ theory and antibiotics, but try to figure out how to implement them in a way that demands fewer nonrenewable resources. Germ theory is easy enough; just wash your hands frequently and throw your tools into boiling hot water.

So much of our problems and our discussions center around how we can't have that or we must have that, but that's sloppy thinking. A smarter approach would be, "Okay, how can we use this more efficiently?" Like rather than constantly produce new gadgets, we can accept that we've produced a shitton of them and rather than do all the work involved to make more slightly upgraded models, why not cannibalize old versions for parts, see if we can figure out how to make it work for a newer model?

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