Sometimes, I think we need to stop blaming just Capitalism, and get more personal. Lots of countries use a Capitalistic system, but still manage to pay workers fair wages, provide free/inexpensive Healthcare, have paid maternity/paternity leave, longer paid vacation, shorter work weeks, ect. We use the word Capitalism like Christians use The Devil, but it's not some dark mysterious force, it is people who are choosing to treat other people like actual garbage, it is people who are making laws, people who are denying rights. The derision with which we speak the name of Elon Musk or Donald Trump, should be universal for rich fuckers who choose profits over people. They shouldn't get to hide behind, Oh, that's just late stage Capitalism. It's a choice for them, and it's a choice for the lobbyists who promote them, and it's a choice for the politicians who put those laws into action.
@RickiTarr
Imma gonna say greed. Greed of power and money. I hear what you're saying. There's enough for everyone except the greedy ones at the front of the line don't share. #GOPvalues#privilege
Yes, it'd be much clearer to expand the question to a simple “Does the person have a religion?” before asking which one.
“[Michael Dove, chair of the Census21 Group, told Crikey that] the current question on the [#AustralianCensus, “What is the person's religion?”] leads many people to talk about their cultural background rather than what religion they align with.
“It was in the interests of bishops and the church that the “cultural Catholics get counted so the Catholic Church can overstate its relevance, and continue to enjoy the privileged funding, policy, and media access benefits”, he said.
““There’s an awful lot of religious privilege that flows from the census stage and that needs to be changed.””
Online discourse: "You have to convince me to vote for Joe #Biden"
Why? I don't like Joe Biden. The idea that anyone has to convince you to fall in love with Joe Biden is as absurd of a #political assertion as the #MAGA cult and #Trump, that #politics is about #passion
It's also the height of #privilege and #entitlement, that you don't have to care about your #trans compatriots, you don't have to care about the #climate, that you don't have to care about #women and their right to control their own body, etc. You're going to assert your single issue, to the exclusion of all other issues, and even go backwards on that one issue
Today from my backyard. It's glorious. After 40 years here and many life changes, I'd started to take it for granted. I don't go down there nearly enough.
A short walk reminds me of exactly why we bought this rough old 5 acres instead of a proper small block (for the same price!) just out the road. 😎
I wish J could still enjoy it, but she longer remembers home. Even if she did, it's a cliff top scramble - not accessible. 😢
As though we should care. The underpinning argument being that women need access to the cabal of politicians, journalists and lawyers that make ‘London Tick’ (we treat our dug for that). They will be as corrupt. (Equal opportunities and all)
Bret Favre scandal drags on. He took $5 million from Mississippi welfare funds 5 yrs ago. Money slated for the poor built a soccer facility at his daughter's school.
Tape exists of Favre asking officials for funds, seeking advice on hiding source of money. No state/federal entity has charged Favre or anyone else w/criminal conduct. He paid $1 million per court order, now owes another $750K.
Welfare fraud is a felony. Anyone other than a very rich white man would be facing prison. #privilege
#Trump has 10 days to obtain the new smaller bond of $175M, & 2 people w/knowledge of his finances said he should be able to secure it by then.
Until the #court accepted the smaller #bond on Mon, Trump was on the hook to obtain a bond for the full amount, in order to avoid paying #NYAG James’s office the >$454M while he appeals.
To obtain a bond of such size, Trump would have needed to pledge a significant amt of collateral to the bond co — ~$557M, his attys said….
Amelia Mavis Christnot explains how men like Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and Brock Turner are made — and why they're allowed for so long by so many people to evade responsibility for their actions.
Heterosexual white male entitlement combined with overweening privilege due to wealth and social status: a formula for imagining that the world is there for your taking — as well as the women you assault.
Peter Navarro is due to report to a federal prison on Tuesday after an appeals court ruled that his appeal wasn’t likely to overturn his conviction for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the #January6 attack that Trump supporters aimed at the US Capitol in 2021. #Navarro has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive #privilege. Federal judge Amit Mehta, who was appointed during Barack Obama’s presidency, barred Navarro from making that argument at trial, finding that he didn’t show Trump had actually invoked it.
His emergency application to the Supreme Court comes as the court separately prepares to hear arguments on whether Trump himself has presidential #immunity from charges alleging he interfered in the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden
Navarro was the second Trump aide convicted of misdemeanor congressional contempt charges. Former Trump White House chief strategist #Steve#Bannon previously received a four-month sentence but was allowed to stay free pending appeal by federal judge Carl Nichols, who was appointed by Trump.
Navarro – an economist and Trump’s trade adviser – was found guilty of #defying a #subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House committee that was investigating the January 6 attack. He also #promoted Trump’s #lies about how electoral fraudsters denied him victory against Biden and was given a four-month #prison sentence.
Being hyper-abled and disabled are not mutually exclusive. That's why there are terms for people who exist at both ends of the ability/disability spectrum at the same time. "Twice exceptional", "idiot savant", "splinter skills", "spiky skill profile"... These are a few of the terms invented specifically to describe such a pattern. Autistic people, in particular, are likely to fit this pattern.
I was just told by someone that using "idiot savant" as an insult isn't ableist because they're insulting privileged, hyper-abled folks, not disabled people. But what exactly does calling someone that term imply? That they have a narrow skillset and are socially inept or otherwise disabled in other areas? It's using a disability as an insult, pure and simple.
Every time you use a disability as an insult, you are reinforcing the notion that disability is worse than whatever it is you are insulting. You are helping to establish or maintain that hierarchical notion that disabled people are inferior. Yes, even calling a privileged, hyper-abled person an idiot or an idiot savant contributes to this, and is therefore ableist.
My friend Aparna wrote a stellar piece titled “White Men’s Role In Advancing Equity And Inclusion.” She’s a brilliant woman who is doing exceptional work in the spaces of equity. And she honored me with a request to share some insights, which she included therein. It’s an edifying piece that I highly recommend y’all read.
rk at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own #wealth, #power, or #privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. (3/4)
I love Dr. Mick's streams (in this case, "Horizon Zero Dawn with a Therapist"), and here he provides an excellent example of institutional discrimination within the context of a video game.
If someone has difficulties grasping the concept of #privilege in real life, then maybe this is a good starting point.
Some thoughts to those inclined to take the word of 'respectable' public figures (who are actually authoritarians and even génocidaires), and to those who have grown cynical of all lying politicians:
There used to be a concept called 'leaving hostages to fortune', in which public figures learned to avoid making promises or offering falsehoods that were vulnerable to thwarting/exposure by future contingencies.
Under the assumption that having your lies exposed or rash promise invalidated would be potentially career-ending, it used to sometimes be reasonable to operate on an epistemic criterion of "embarrassment", where we could increase our level of trust in a statement made by a public figure if it (a) wasn't currently able to be confirmed but (b) it seemed obvious that they would get caught out for lying if it were not true. I.e. "They wouldn't lie about that, right?"
However, the information landscape has profoundly shifted in recent years. (Or has seemed to for some people. See below)
1/4
I said earlier that the information landscape has changed. At one level, it has. At another very important level, this change has primarily been in the experience of many of us in (so-called) western liberal democracies, who previously enjoyed the #privilege of feeling less routinely lied. Citizens of the majority world have for decades/lifetimes experienced a similar pattern of shamelessly manipulative falsehoods and consequence-free empty promises from leaders in the #ImperialCore.
Once citizens in these colonising and settler-colonial wealthy nations realise that, then the potential for genuine #solidarity across national, colonial and generational boundaries begins to open. And that solidarity represents the only genuine threat to the #plutocratic divide-and-conquer agenda that is as old as time and which is currently hurtling us collectively towards an uninhabitable Earth.
Solidarity or hell-on-Earth: these are only two paths currently available. Indeed, given the enormous success of this #InformationWarfare over recent decades, this is reduced to one choice: solidarity amidst our unfolding hell-on-Earth or collapse, mass death and the extinction of the last shreds of human dignity, kindness and joy. Let us each choose wisely.