The Four Unicorns of the Gaypocalypse
A personal blog. Sometimes I make GIFs.
If white radicals are serious about revolution, they are going to have to discard a lot of bullshit ideology created by and for educated white middle-class males. A good example of what has to go is the popular theory of consumerism.
….
First of all, there is nothing inherently wrong with consumption. Shopping and consuming are enjoyable human activities and the marketplace has been a center of social life for thousands of years.
The locus of the oppression resides in the production function: people have no control over which commodities are produced (or services performed), in what amounts, under what conditions, or how these commodities are distributed. Corporations make these decisions and base them solely on profit potential.
As it is, the profusion of commodities is a genuine and powerful compensation for oppression. It is a bribe, but like all bribes it offers concrete benefits—in the average American’s case, a degree of physical comfort unparalleled in history. Under present conditions, people are preoccupied with consumer goods not because they are brainwashed but because buying is the one pleasurable activity not only permitted but actively encouraged by our rulers. The pleasure of eating an ice cream cone may be minor compared to the pleasure of meaningful, autonomous work, but the former is easily available and the latter is not.
”Ellen Willis - Women and the Myth of Consumerism, 1969 (via zhinxy)
THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 1969 BUT WHITE ANARCHISTS EVERYWHERE HAVE MISSED IT.
(via everythingbutharleyquinn)
Nice convention bounce there, Romney.
OK, so he actually did have a bounce, but it was smaller than expected so FiveThirtyEight interprets it as a negative:
Our forecast model builds in an adjustment for the party conventions; it treats anything larger than a 4-point bounce as being a favorable sign for Mr. Romney, and anything smaller than that as being an unfavorable one.
This could change as we get more data, but for the time being it looks like Mr. Romney’s bounce will be a bit shy of that 4-point threshold. Thus, the forecast has moved toward Mr. Obama over the past few days; it now gives him a 74.5 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, his highest figure to date.
I just learned this AMAZING fact from the Parade of Nations coverage: In Finland, traffic fines are assessed based on income. So they calculate a figure, called a “dayfine,” equal to approximately half your daily disposable income, then multiply that based on the severity of the offense.
I’ve always found our regressive system of flat fines irritating—a fine for the same offense can be devastating to a poor person, but at the same time so trivial to a rich person that it’s barely a deterrent.
But in Finland, the rich pay appropriately huge fines. In 2002, a Nokia executive got a speeding ticket for €116,000, or $103,600—$131,000 in 2012 dollars. And in 2004, the heir to a sausage fortune was fined€170,000, then worth about $204,000, or $248,000 now.
Sounds damn fair if you ask me!
Obamacare! Gay marriage! Legalizing drugs! I’m moving to Canada to get away from all of this shit!
Umm… guys, I think there’s some stuff about Canada we need to talk about.
This is the best day.
If it was true that lower taxes for the rich and more wealth for the wealthy led to job creation, today we would be drowning in jobs.
-Venture Capitalist Nick Hanauer in the “forbidden Ted Talk”
“Oh yeah.” (x)
The Lorax — that squat orange creature Dr. Seuss created to speak for the trees — is now hawking SUVs at elementary schools across the land.
The sales pitch is part of the National Education Association’s “Read Across America tour — Driven by Mazda,” which arrived at Alexandria’s James K. Polk Elementary School on Tuesday.
It was a hybrid event: a celebration of reading, a fundraiser for public-school libraries, and an opportunity to market Mazdas to the pint-size set. While they don’t buy many cars themselves, they have direct access to parents who do.
“I track school advertising for a living,” said Josh Golin, associate director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “This is among the most outrageous examples of any school advertisement program I’ve ever heard of.”
At Polk Elementary on Tuesday, more than 100 kindergartners and fourth- and fifth-graders crowded into the multipurpose room for a rendition of Seuss’s classic environmentalist tale.
Afterward, a Mazda representative — Dan Ryan of the government relations office — stood up.
He unveiled an oversized $1,000 check meant to help beef up the school’s library collection. “We think reading is very important,” Ryan said. The audience cheered.
Ryan then told the kids they could help raise up to a million dollars for other schools’ libraries — and qualify for a sweepstakes entry (trip for four to Universal Studios).
All they had to do was persuade their parents to go to the nearest Mazda dealership for a test-drive.
For every person who test-drives a car — and brings in a special certificate, which students received at school Tuesday — Mazda will donate $25 to the NEA’s foundation for public schools.
Ryan told his rapt audience that Mazda’s latest models get great gas mileage — at 35 miles to the gallon, the CX-5 is the most efficient SUV on American highways, he said.
“That’s the kind of car we think the Lorax would like to drive,” he said.
Shortly thereafter a very lovable-looking Lorax emerged from stage right and the kids — many of them wearing homemade striped Cat in the Hat hats — erupted in squeals.
The Lorax waved and doled out hugs. The kids serenaded him with a song.
And then everyone was ushered outside to see two cars up close — a Mazda 3 sedan and a CX-5 sports utility vehicle, both specially painted with Lorax scenes and both with what Mazda has termed “Truffula Tree-approved SKYACTIV® TECHNOLOGY.”
[…]
“The ‘ask’ we are making is to test drive the car, not necessarily to buy it,” NEA spokeswoman Dana Dossett wrote in an e-mail. “Once people learn that by simply test driving a car, they can raise $25 for their public school library and libraries nationwide, they gladly participate. We’re ‘marketing’ a great cause that will have a direct benefit to students.”
[…]
Outside the school, hundreds of kids — including many who hadn’t been privy to the Lorax reading event — filed past the two Mazda vehicles on display.
Some reached out to touch the cars. A few kneeled to have their photographs taken. Others erupted into a spontaneous chant. “Lorax car, Lorax car, Lorax car!” they said.
One of their classmates quietly objected.
“The Lorax doesn’t drive a car,” he said.
I saw the Lorax Mazda commercial when it went around, but missed this. … I just can’t begin to count the levels of wrongness here.
