extermination without pity

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:13:02 +0100

abigailrebekahbarr-poetry: it will be ok we will die together choking in our sleep.

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:11:52 +0100

abigailrebekahbarr-poetry:

it will be ok

we will die

together

choking

in our sleep.

karenhealey: jennifergearing: trcunning: pippinstewardofgondo...

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:10:28 +0100

karenhealey:

jennifergearing:

trcunning:

pippinstewardofgondor:

inebriatedpony:

Science!

what the fuck is this science bullshit

gif 1, explosive polymerization of p Nitro Aniline Video

gif 2, Sodium Polyacrylate mixed with water Video

gif 3, Sodium Acetate Video

gif 4, the smoke is vaporized wax, can still catch fire and travels back to the wick Video

gif 5, Ping Pong balls + Liquid Nitrogen in a trash can Video

gif 6, electrical treeing

gif 7, heating Mercury Thiocyanate

gif 8, ferrofluid sculpture Video

gif 9, flammable gas lit in a glass jar Video

GO HOME SCIENCE U R DRUNK.

SCIENCE CAN TOTALLY DRIVE OKAY. GIVE SCIENCE THE KEYS.

The Haymarket Martyrs : Indybay

Wed, 01 May 2013 20:41:15 +0100

The Haymarket Martyrs : Indybay:

“I have made some enemies. My enemies in the southern states consisted of those who oppressed the black slave. My enemies in the north are among those who would perpetuate the slavery of the wage workers” -Albert Parsons, Martyr of Heymarket hanged by the State of Illinois in November 1887.

Theories of class composition and privilege

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:02:24 +0100

“To understand the dynamics of class formation in post-colonial Africa, we need first to examine the character of the preceding colonial state. Colonialism left independent African states with a neo-colonial economy, with the capitalist mode of production replacing the pre-capitalist modes; this entailed the subjugation of local labor and resources to the needs of capitalism.

The classes that developed after this integration do not reflect an autonomous economy, but a dependent economy — they show an artificial and truncated version of the class structure of the developed Western economies. This class structure is not the classical division into capitalist class, petit bourgeoisie, working class and/or peasantry, but rather a simplified division into an administrative class and working class/peasantry. That is, classes in the former colonies are composed simply of those who benefit from neo-colonialism and those who suffer from it.

The local business class effectively became a comprador class of agents, middlemen, and front men for foreign interests. As Franz Fanon put it, the national bourgeoisie of underdeveloped societies is not engaged in production or any creative enterprise, but in intermediary activities. The roles of the local and foreign business classes in post-colonial Africa are complementary, but the latter determine the activities of the former.”

African Anarchism: The History of a Movement, Sam Mbah & I E Igariwey

Does this description of a simplified class division into administrative class and working class, those that benefit from globalised/autonomous capital and those that suffer from it perhaps describe the state not just of (neo-)colonial Africa, but increasingly of the West/North/Advanced Capitalist/… countries as well?

While I would certainly disagree with those who claim that class is no longer a useful concept in understanding or classifying society, I do think it is necessary to consider how we understand class and how we use it as an analytical tool. To me class is best understood as a social relation, rather than a system of classification into which we can drop individual people, assigning each a specific, ongoing position. That is, I understand class society as one categorised by a division between capital and labour, one of the necessity and domination of wage labour, in which we all, at different times and in different places adopt divergent roles. Class relations are in this conception performative. When I have to take a job I would otherwise shun, in order to afford to pay rent to a landlord and secure the means of my reproduction, I take on the role of working class, of labour. When I invest the money I have acquired in the course of my labour in a pension, or even to a lesser degree in a bank account, I take on the role of capitalist, recirculating my capital in order to increase its value, to valorise it.

Though the distribution of time spent as labourer and as capitalist varies enormously between individual subjects, there is no doubt that the easy distinction sometimes imaged, and which was perhaps clearer in the past, between the capitalist and the worker is today more ambiguous. Most large enterprises are today run not by an identifiable natural owner, but are instead owned by other large corporations, by governments, by pension funds and other market funds. Very few people live merely by the proceeds of these capital returns without also receiving a wage. At what level do we make the distinction between worker and capitalist? When one receives enough income from investment returns to live by? when those make up the bulk of a person’s income? when any nominal wage is merely incidental? Perhaps, as Mbah and Igariwey suggest, a distinction between those who benefit and those who suffer is, at least, as useful additional framework in which to examine stratification in capitalist society.

Whilst the abstract separation of capital/labour is of crucial for the construction of an immanent critique of capitalism and an examination of its inherent dynamics and subsequent crises, I propose that a more concrete, personal formulation can also be of use. Here I want to compare the power dynamics with those of other forms of structural oppression, patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and so on.

In an abstract, Marxist understanding of class I can claim that, as a wage labourer with little savings or capital, I am part of the working class, and as part of the working class I can call for working class solidarity, autonomy, consciousness and so on, and work towards the extension of such concepts. However, as a worker on an above average wage in the UK (far above average globally), with a comfortable existence, with no (current) worries about paying my rent and a degree of autonomy at my workplace, I should also note that I enjoy a degree of privilege in comparison to the majority of the class in which I claim inclusion. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that my position benefits at their detriment, in an indirect sense at least. However, this is not to say that my personal position would be made worse by an overthrow of capitalist society - I still have to work many hours at a job I consider, in the final analysis, rather pointless, I still live with the risk that at any point I could lose my job and be plunged back into the precariousness and anxiety I have experienced in the past.

In this way, my condition is similar to that I enjoy under patriarchy or white supremacy. As a straight, white, cis man I have a lot of privilege, though there are also ways in which these systems also reduce my own living conditions and I fully support the struggles to abolish these systems and the categories of gender and race entirely. Similarly, as a communist I aim for the abolition of class. In the case of oppression on the basis of gender, sexuality, ability, ethnicity and so on, however, I would support the position that these struggles need to be led by those most affected and that as best I can only by an (active) ally. Whilst class position is, as I have described, more ambiguous, and open to different definitions, given my own privilege, it is unclear to me whether a similar analysis would be appropriate. Am i better described as working class? or a working class ally? Should I not get so hung-up on terminology either way? Or have I got this entirely wrong and succumbed to a liberal, post-Marxist bourgeois deviation?

etcheddubplate: late capitalist ennui

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 01:25:57 +0100

etcheddubplate:

late capitalist ennui

Images From the Future: Theses on Thatcherdeath 2013

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 23:57:42 +0100

Images From the Future: Theses on Thatcherdeath 2013:

imagesfromthefuture:

Today’s Novara on Thatcher’s death was an interesting assessment of her legacy. Here are a few of my own brief theses on Thatcher’s death and celebrations, loosely based on the themes in the show.

1) “She may be dead, but her legacy continues”. No one is so stupid to believe otherwise….

novaramedia: ‘In rod we trust’ #InanimateCarbonRod4NUSPrez

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:06:39 +0100

novaramedia:

‘In rod we trust’ #InanimateCarbonRod4NUSPrez

Photo

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:56:29 +0100

Towards a leisure society: Have we taken some sort of stupid pill?

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:31:22 +0100

Towards a leisure society: Have we taken some sort of stupid pill?:

theleisuresociety:

Seriously.
Anyway peddling the idea that bitcoin is a nobler system than the current one needs to get their head examined.

Just look at the supporting infrastructure. It’s clear it’s designed to replicate the current system almost identically. It panders to exactly the same speculative, pariah…

Photo

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:06:22 +0100

futurefutures: happy thatcher death! #brixton

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:02:50 +0100

futurefutures:

happy thatcher death! #brixton

Prolapsarian: A Question for the Government on the Benefits Cap

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 23:30:53 +0100

Prolapsarian: A Question for the Government on the Benefits Cap:

prolapsarian:

A Question for the Government on the Benefits Cap

Let us imagine two hypothetical families living in London: The first is composed of a mother, a father, and two children aged 7 and 11; the second is identical, but with four children, twins aged 3, a child aged 7, and a child aged 11. Until two years ago, the mother and the father in each family worked, and earned a wage enough to rent accommodation privately without claiming housing benefit. Two years ago, the mother in each family became ill and was unable to work, so had to give up her job. Last year, the company that the father worked for went bust, and he was made unemployed. Both families then began to rely on benefits in order to survive. That is, benefits covered everything from rent to food to heating. The mothers in these families are now well, but along with the fathers cannot find work despite looking for it. Due to the conditions of the jobs market, it seems unlikely that any of the parents will find work in the near future. The first family, with two children, receives in total £25,000 in benefits a year; the second, with four children, receives £30,000. They receive these amounts because they are what the government currently deems necessary for these families in order to pay for what they need to survive. Most of the money goes directly to the private landlord who owns the two properties in which the families live, as although the families are on the list for council housing there are no suitable properties for them in the area in which they live. The rest of the money is divided between bills, food, and clothes.

On 15 July, a new government policy will be imposed upon them, capping benefits at £26,000. Consequently, the family with four children will face a shortfall of £4,000, based on their current spending on necessities. The first family, on the other hand, will maintain its benefits at the previously given level.

The question for the government, one which I am yet to see answered, is how they can justify to the children of the second family that they should have a more impoverished and harder childhood than the children of the first.

I am willing to post up any answers I receive.

Some background to the problem

The justification given by the government for the benefits cap is that no household ought to receive more in benefits than the average family earns. What this means is that a family that is in a demographic extreme (for example, a family with many children), or families that have complex needs which have been previously aided by benefits payments, are compared to an average family, with one or two parents and 2 children, all of whom are healthy.

I would be grateful if people could share this post on facebook and twitter.

Iain Duncan Smith is not the first MP to try living on benefits – others have failed before him

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:37:20 +0100

Iain Duncan Smith is not the first MP to try living on benefits – others have failed before him:

whatmakespistachionuts:

The grandaddy of them all, though, is Matthew Parris. In 1984, Parris, at the time a freshly elected Tory MP flushed with enthusiasm for the Thatcherdom, agreed to try living for a week in a Newcastle bedsit on £26.80, the supplementary benefit paid to a single unemployed man.

For the Benefit of Mr Parris, a World in Action documentary that drew a record 13 million viewers, showed “the comfortable Tory MP for West Derbyshire”, as Julian Barnes called him in an Observer review, informing an audience of Tory ladies that unemployment “should be uncomfortable”, in order to sharpen the appetites of the jobless for work.

Since the government of which he was a member had just cut benefits by 5% and was presiding – as Parris himself wrote – “over an economy in which whole forests of jobs in manufacturing were falling to the monetarist axe”, a lot of people wanted to see how he would survive his week. He didn’t.

The programme showed Parris arriving on Tyneside and signing on. He spent £11 on food, £2.50 on a terrace ticket for a Newcastle United game and 72p on a bus ticket to get there. And, as Barnes observed, “with two days to go he was down to his last 61p, and his plan to save £3 out of his £26.80 had collapsed. On his last evening the gas and electricity ran out and he loitered in a working men’s club, unable to afford a drink.”

Parris, who acknowledges his week-long flirtation with poverty launched his subsequent successful career as a full-time writer and broadcaster, conceded he had not survived as well as he hoped, but refused to admit benefits were too low or that society, economics or politics could be blamed for individuals’ problems.

Twenty years later he made For the Benefit of Mr Parris Revisited, returning to the same estate for another week, this time on a 2004 jobseeker’s allowance of £54.65. The result was depressing: in 1984, Scotswood residents were angry, but still kicking. By 2004 they had basically given up and were living on antidepressants.

Do we ever learn anything from such experiments? As Gareth MacLean wrote in the Guardian in 2004, “Parris negotiating life on a £55 budget becomes a variation on the tasks in the Big Brother house, slumming it in Newcastle akin to surviving in the I’m a Celebrity jungle. It’s poverty as entertainment and very little else.”

drafting a new appeal letter to the DWP

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 22:09:23 +0100

drafting a new appeal letter to the DWP

horseecomics: “How to Properly Scream” I ain’t ‘fraid of no...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:37:06 +0100

horseecomics:

“How to Properly Scream”

I ain’t ‘fraid of no goats!

Haha, this one was a lot of fun to draw.

Well, they all are. But… goats.

Man.

The Day I Taught How Not To Rape

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 11:49:06 +0100

The Day I Taught How Not To Rape:

dancinginthesetrees:

““Ms. Norman” another kid called, “Have you heard about that rape case in Ohio? Those guys got convicted. They have to go to jail. They are going to lose their scholarships. They were going to D-1 schools!”

“Well…”I responded, feeling the heat crawl up my neck, “maybe they are going to jail for rape because THEY ARE RAPISTS!” I yelled those last three words at my kids and watched as some of them blinked in surprise. Apparently, the thought had never occurred to them that these athletes who were convicted of rape, were in fact rapists.

It is a strange thing about looking into the face of a 15-year-old, to really see who they are. You still see the small child that their mother sees. You see the man or woman they will be before they graduate. They are babies whose innocence you want desperately to protect. They are old enough to know better, even if no one has taught them.

I realized then that some of my kids were genuinely confused. “How can she be raped?” they asked, “She wasn’t awake to say no.” These words out of a full fledged adult would have made me furious. I did get a good few minutes in response on victim blaming and why it is so terrible. But out of the face of a kid who still has baby fat, those words just made me sick. My students are still young enough, that mostly they just spout what they have learned, and they have learned that absent a no, the yes is implied.

It is uncomfortable to think that some of the students you still call babies have the potential to be rapists. It is sickening, it is terrifying, but it is true. It is a reality we have to face. My students have lived in a world for fifteen years where the joke “she probably wanted it” isn’t really a joke, they need to unlearn some lessons that no one will admit to teaching them.

Standing in front of my classroom and stating that a woman’s clothing choice is never permission to rape her should not be a radical act. But only a few heads nodded in agreement. Most were stunned, like this was a completely new thought. The follow up questions were terrifying in their earnestness. “Ms. Norman, you mean a woman walking down the street naked is not her inviting sex? How will I know she wants to have sex?” A surprisingly bold voice came out of a girl in the back “You’ll know when she says, you want to have sex?!”

If you want to keep teens from being rapists, you can no longer assume that they know how. You HAVE to talk about it. There is no longer a choice. It is no longer enough to talk to our kids about the mechanics of sex, it probably never was. We have to talk about consent, what it means, and how you are sure you have it. We have to teach clearly and boldly that consent is (in the words of Dianna E. Anderson) an enthusiastic, unequivocal YES!”

-A selection from an excellent blog post by Abby Norman, a 9th grade teacher who, after introducing a poem to the class for discussion, accidentally found herself teaching them about consent.

This is why it is SO IMPORTANT to talk about consent as a yes instead of a lack of no. And why we must TEACH it instead of assuming that people already understand.

fucktheory: Especially Scalia. Don’t misunderstand me - I love...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:13:44 +0000

fucktheory:

Especially Scalia.

Don’t misunderstand me - I love that straight allies, especially, want to show solidarity. But I really don’t like that “solidarity” in this case means a not-very-subtle, massive cross-platform advertising campaign for the HRC.

The HRC are terrible, self-serving Washington lobbyists. If you want to give money to the Cause, find a nearby shelter for homeless LGBT youth and donate to them, instead.

class-struggle-anarchism: Let us devastate the avenues where...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:40:12 +0000

class-struggle-anarchism:

Let us devastate the avenues where the wealthy live

-Lucy Parsons

immolator: oh my god

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:21:12 +0000

immolator:

oh my god