New Testingstan

Dooey Jo wrote:

Straha wrote:no group fighting for recognition and respect has ever been able to achieve it without using violence, or by acting in such a way so as to compel the state (or other powers that be) into violence against them that also legitimizes the users of those violent acts.

define "group" and "violence", as with standard definitions of these terms the statement is historically problematic

Define it as broadly or as narrowly as you'd like, I'm speaking in a broadly historical (almost historical materialist) lens here.

To simply expect them to roll over, or to ask the oppressors to change their ways out of the goodness of their hearts, will always re-entrench new forms of structural inequality.

this is a false dilemma. the alternatives are not passivity or violence. striking workers are not asking their employers to do anything out of "the goodness of their hearts", nor are they threatening anyone with violence.

Organized labor won the right to strike across the world through intense and bloody conflicts. Inside the United States the history of unionization comes on the back of organized violence and destructive activity (see: the mine wars, the Morewood massacre, the Haymarket affair, the 'redneck massacre', etc. or Unionizers like Mother Jones, John Mitchell, or Thomas Lewis, etc). In the present a strike, or a threat to strike, is not inherently a violent act (though I know quite a few capitalists who disagree, and quite a few Lefties who wish it were) but that's only because of a history that could fill rivers with blood.

I'd go into a global history, but you know how I feel about beating a living horse so imagine what I'd think about beating a dead horse.

Sloterdijk's book Terror from the Air which you should read (I can even hook you up with a digital copy if you're so inclined.)

yes please

I think I can broadly agree with what you're saying, I'm just not sure if terrorism is the right term to use
but then, I can't really think of a better one off the top of my head so

Wasn't the term 'terrorism' first brought into common usage during the 'Year of Terror' in the French Revoltion?
It would seem an irony, given the current state of world politics, that terrorism was what gave rise to the model of most modern democracy

Straha wrote:

Dooey Jo wrote:

Straha wrote:no group fighting for recognition and respect has ever been able to achieve it without using violence, or by acting in such a way so as to compel the state (or other powers that be) into violence against them that also legitimizes the users of those violent acts.

define "group" and "violence", as with standard definitions of these terms the statement is historically problematic

Define it as broadly or as narrowly as you'd like, I'm speaking in a broadly historical (almost historical materialist) lens here.

To simply expect them to roll over, or to ask the oppressors to change their ways out of the goodness of their hearts, will always re-entrench new forms of structural inequality.

this is a false dilemma. the alternatives are not passivity or violence. striking workers are not asking their employers to do anything out of "the goodness of their hearts", nor are they threatening anyone with violence.

Organized labor won the right to strike across the world through intense and bloody conflicts. Inside the United States the history of unionization comes on the back of organized violence and destructive activity (see: the mine wars, the Morewood massacre, the Haymarket affair, the 'redneck massacre', etc. or Unionizers like Mother Jones, John Mitchell, or Thomas Lewis, etc). In the present a strike, or a threat to strike, is not inherently a violent act (though I know quite a few capitalists who disagree, and quite a few Lefties who wish it were) but that's only because of a history that could fill rivers with blood.

I'd go into a global history, but you know how I feel about beating a living horse so imagine what I'd think about beating a dead horse.

i would also like to read sloterdijk

and really, it all depends on what we mean by violence. a great deal of 'passive' resistance to slavery in the usa consisted of deliberately sabotaging work, which is not the conventional definition of force but certainly involves direct action and effort

so the address i was at last week was indeed the correct one, just their inner door blocks any knocking sound from the outer door

this time i just went into the inner door since i saw them through the window and thus knew i had the right place


and they axed me "do you play magic" and i'm like "the gathering?"

if i knew that was on the agenda i would have brought my 3rd edition deck and pwned those n00bs. i had to borrow one of their decks and it was a 6 way match. i took a close 3rd place; if i used the equipment at the earliest opportunity instead of not realizing what it was for i would have won it too, oh well


i gotta say, i was expecting it to be an awkward "hello *long silence* *generic questions* well, i really must get back to my puppy but it was really nice meeting you. see you around" thing that i just had to get out of the way for social politeness and then never do again

instead, yeah ima pwn them next week. and they said i can even bring the small dog!

not bad, not bad at all

the broadway version of war horse is pretty sentimental and overwrought but it has some really cool puppetry and set design

adr wrote:my 3rd edition deck

my two main decks are mostly all revised/unlimited. one is pure, the other has a few random cards from other sets too, i think a total of 8 cards non-third

pretty basic decks but i have a pretty decent record playing them. so many players of the new cards get so worked up with their infinite combos or bazillion indestructable double strike first strike batallion hexproof lifelink tokens with a hundred +1/+1 tokens that they forget the basics

Rule 1: Don't Lose
Rule 2: Let's You And Him Fight
Rule 3: I Only Need 1.

wow, there is a lot of victorian erotica on project gutenburg

A partial list of ways non-trans-women’s community fails trans women:
...
•Being male-dominated (this includes trans men)

I find this one kind of interesting, my impression is transmen seem to be a lot less visible than transwomen for some reason, if anything I'd have expected transwomen to have disproportionate influence relative to other trans people based on that.

- quote swiped from Biscuit's tumblr -

What's the name of your tumblr, IB?

Apropos of nothing except my earlier post:

Fuck "social justice" as a concept. I hate it, I hate the way it gets trotted out, and I hate the faux-leftism of those who advocate it from behind a laptop screen without engaging in some form of real world activism or any understanding of the intense scholarship behind the words that get trotted out as conversational cornerstones ('patriarchy', 'privilege', 'hierarchy') by its crusading wing.

Let's go to the name alone, 'social justice'. What is the social for which it seeks justice? Who belongs to this social? Endless black scholars like Wilderson, Ahmed, Sexton, Yancy, and so many more going back to Fanon and beyond, deepthinkers who I respect in profoundly inarticulable ways are all clear that the black person, the black body, does not exist as social entity in the modern world. That slavery and colonialism have so radically altered and destroyed any possible understanding of the black person as to make them always and perpetually a slave, a non-entity, a zero-being, "ontologically dead." If they are not part of the society what does it matter if the society is just? Is a 'just' society even possible in that case? Or would the renumeration of the crimes of which they are victims require the destruction of society?

Let's go towards a field closer to my heart, the non-human. How can the chimpanzee be part of my society? How can the Chimp and I have an understanding? Is it even possible? How about the wolf? How about the shrew? How the cow? The chicken? The pig? There is no possibility of a social understanding that can be developed with them. I have no doubts, none at all, that they have their own social groups, their own societies and understandings, but for now at least (do not read that as a humanist exhortation to the coming technological/scientific transcendence of the abyss that separates us) they exist beyond our comprehension and if that is so how can we establish a relationship of justice? Let's set that aside, for a moment, and engage in the mindless call of the analytical school for a moment, if we were to recreate the world what would a just relationship with the pig look like? Certainly they wouldn't be eaten, but how would I alter my life to recognize them? Would I be able to run power-lines through woods they inhabit? Roads? How take water from rivers they drink from? How can I even begin to understand these questions in a way that establishes 'justice'?

(Want to see something funny? Mention our ethical dietary obligations to the non-human other in a public conversation in Social Justice circles and then wait until 'vegan privilege' gets mentioned. Clockwork.)

Maybe I'm just a bitter young man, or maybe I'm going through what the communist party must have thought of fellow-travellers. In spaces where I don't have an intense respect for most of the other possible participants in this conversation I would never air these complaints, but I just cannot stand it anymore.

I often question my relationship with wolves

You didn't mention plants in your non-human section (don't they deserve to be treated justly too?)

But yeah, I do agree with everything you're saying there

People probably shouldn't try to champion a cause that they
A) know little to nothing about
B) don't actually do anything about irl

someone once told me that hierarchy means something along the line of 'priest leadership'

but i replied "that's greek to me" and tuned it out so don't quote me on that

Straha wrote:'vegan privilege'

How does that work?

Do they mean veganism is easier if you have the time and money to carefully tailor your diet instead of just eating whatever is cheap? I can sort of see that. The, I suppose call it "enlightened consumption" movement (organic food etc.) always struck me as having a stink of unexamined privilege and snobbery about it. Like, a lot of it inherently favors people who have the money to buy more expensive food, have more access to information and more free time and energy to devote to this stuff etc., and there's the more fundamental issue of how it proposes individualistic solutions for systemic problems (and thus implicitly suggests the masses are responsible for these problems existing by their unenlightened personal choices, conveniently shifting the blame away from the powerful and assigning it to the people). There's also the more fuzzy complaint that it's full of a kind of romanticism of the natural and primitive that's really obviously a product of people cradled in the arms of an affluent civilization fantasizing about how the grass is greener on a side they'll never actually have to experience (except maybe in some relatively safe and controlled camping trip/ecotourism form that they do for a weekend and then go back to their comfortable lives in the city).

Is this what you're talking about or is it something sillier?

Straha wrote:Fuck "social justice" as a concept. I hate it, I hate the way it gets trotted out, and I hate the faux-leftism of those who advocate it from behind a laptop screen without engaging in some form of real world activism or any understanding of the intense scholarship behind the words that get trotted out as conversational cornerstones ('patriarchy', 'privilege', 'hierarchy') by its crusading wing.

Yeah no true leftist I guess

I'll admit that I might not get engaged in any real activism

But by goodness I try to educate people on concepts when I can

straha, how do pet animals like dogs fit into this stuff?

You should maybe try forming your own opinion as opposed to asking for a handout from a self-important moral elitist.

ford, do you realise how much of a dick you sound like?
I'm asking for clarification of his position
you dick

Yeah, I do. I don't really mind though.

well as long as you know

Speed Racer is a terrific film.