a lumpen creature trying their best between constant crises
Just when will my human rights, which are grounded in the constitution
the US constitution is an ideological rag and a liberal holy text written by and for wealthy protocapitalists seeking independence from mercantilism. it wasn’t written for you, just as it wasn’t written for women or BIPOC. the police and courts serve the state, not persons.
… because it was flagged by Lightspeed? or is Discord doing something of their own now too?
i wouldn’t find out till after her death that my grandmother had a PhD in computer science. she became a housewife and pretended her whole life to be tech illiterate because she was ashamed of being a technical woman, apparently because of the hatred she got during her studies.
they have, but they assume:
they hear the phrases ‘supply chain attacks’ and ‘24/7 premium support’ and they’re sold. the more responsibility they can foist onto third-parties for when something goes wrong, the less liability they have.
in a lot of ‘developed’ countries: government at all levels are structurally forbidden from managing their own infrastructure. to ‘maintain the free market’ and avoid ‘anticompetition’ lawsuits, they procure development contracts via bids. Microsoft has the money and dominance to not only lobby governments to adopt their software, but can also outbid most other companies, and pays a lot of money to ensure there’s an army of Microsoft Certified™ office workers and technicians everywhere.
every time the government tries to do something by itself, or to exclude one company or another from the bidding process, the industry lobbies crawl out to screech about ‘competition’ and ‘free market principles’.
all the people in my life are libbrained. they agree with almost everything i believe in but then instantly forget every conversation we ever have and go on believing and acting the same way they always have. their entire concept of geopolitics is flag emoji bashing into each other and making SWOOOSH and CRASH sounds. they treat it like a team sport. casualties are just numbers on a scoreboard. it’s all just a game to them.
there are a few of them who are aware of how politically uneducated they are, and they’ll come to me with questions, which they insultingly open with some variation of ‘so i get the impression you’re not the biggest fan of capitalism’ (DO YOU NOT REMEMBER A SINGLE FUCKING CONVERSATION WE’VE EVER HAD???). and i’ll answer directly and briefly, with links to more information. they never look anything up on their own. and then they come back a month later about how ‘someone who used to be my friend who went to Harvard said you’re wrong. thoughts?’ and i tell them to kick rocks and go back to rotting in their bingbingwahoo and superhero slop.
my local orgs are trapped in a sectarian stalemate; too busy fighting with each other. the paths toward effective action are all criminalised, so organising has been limited. i’m mostly stuck doing small things here and there with radlibs. all ‘above board’ of course.
the job i’ve trained for / done my whole life has been outsourced. i’m blacklisted in my industry and need to re/upskill thanks to “AI”, with no support. (not that there’s any jobs available anyway; there isn’t.) i might get deported. my trump card is playing into my disability, which sacrifices my agency and belonging for being permanently isolated but almost never having to worry about being homeless again. i’ve been on the streets twice; i don’t think i can do it again at my age.
i’m just so fucking done with it all. idk i’m writing this mostly to scream into the void.
this was fever-inducing to read. in a frighteningly familiar way, but i couldn’t remember what for.
then i realised: another n+1 article from a year ago about a techbro conference: An Age of Hyperabundance.
my mother giving me an allowance and then calling take-backsies every month because she needed it to cover the bills.
won’t even embezzle or SA interns or make me listen to their life story once a year
wow, i didn’t know we had the exact same boss.
is this all there is? /rh
in Europe all i ever seem to meet are:
i’m either too old or too young to hang with any of these groups, and every year i get badjacketed because i wear a mask or have a ‘funny’ accent. i spent most of today having my fashion sense and diction mocked by 80 year old crackkkers. [nb my keyboard is broken and typed the three k’s itself. i’ve unlocked Maoist English autocorrect on my pc.]
all the local orgs are either clandestine anarcho-nihilists, or radlibs adopting revolutionary language but whose praxis begins and ends at petitions and performative protests.
i think it would be more symbolic to extend the rainbow peace flag over it.
there is no contradiction between private property abolition and land-back.
private property abolition is about ending rentseeking and recommoning the means of (re)production.
land-back is about self-determination and reparations for the descendants of these genocided peoples; peoples whose destruction still benefits the living descandants of settlers. it’s about returning to broken treaties, ending extractive capitalism on their sacred land, and ending the process of enclosure which cuts them off from their culture, families and neighbours. it’s about restoring rights and laws of stewardship to the people who actually live there and have a connection to the land.
land-back doesn’t mean transferring private property. it means reöpening it and giving indigenous peoples back their right of stewardship.
land-back is private property abolition. it’s also an environmental movement.