I am asked this more often then I would expect, given the fact that I am very clear about my left-wing politics in my description. Abortion rights and bodily autonomy are a fundamental part of any anarchist vision.
As far as my Christianity goes, I don’t think I would get an abortion myself - but then, I literally will never know the answer to that question, since I don’t have a uterus and would never have to make that choice. If I were against abortion rights, I would be effectively saying that I know better than anybody who actually has to make these kinds of decisions, somehow.
People who will never have to make a choice about an abortion being against abortion rights is a special kind of cruelty, honestly. It really is.
I believe that, as a society, we have enough resources to feed and house everyone; each person should be provided with a livable minimum that will allow them to secure a comfortable and happy existence. I believe that many jobs aren’t necessary in the grand scheme of things as well, and that ultimately food services should be automated or reworked so that people don’t have to spend huge chunks of their lives flipping burgers for the profit of fast food millionaires. If we were to actually employ some know-how as a society (possible in a society steered by democratic planning and worker/community control of industry), we could employ everyone, utilize machines to help workers with their jobs (rather than as competition for the benefit of the rich), drastically cut down the work week, and allow people to pursue whatever their interests and talents push them towards. Socialism isn’t about “the fast food worker and the surgeon making the same amount of money”. It’s about pushing society towards a state of affairs where money isn’t the plutocratic arbiter of our life choices, by decommodifying the social realm as much as possible.
Like….I want you to understand that there aren’t just some inherent castes of people who flip burgers or perform surgeries; those castes are shaped by the way capitalism stratifies people and funnels them into jobs and opportunities. In a more just society where people had more free time and qualitative access to education and resources, we’d probably see millions of people tied down to no particular job in the capitalist sense of today. “Burger flippers” would also be artists, builders, farmers, etc. Specialization would still happen, definitely, but where it does occur would likely be accompanied by social prestige and intense satisfaction for the craft – that comes with the territory when the people involved actually make the decisions (rather than submit to the decisions of bosses or property-owners). I’ve seen it argued before and I’ll reiterate it: I’d rather be entrusted to a surgeon who cares about helping people than one who’s only involved to become rich. And it’s not like surgeons and doctors will be destitute under socialism or something – they’ll be as able to self-actualize and enjoy the fruits of society as anybody else, if not moreso in some small ways (through that aforementioned prestige and respect and all that stuff).
This “you want everyone to be paid the same” argument misunderstands what socialists are aiming for; it’s too myopic and can’t help but assume socialism is just capitalism with hyper-redistributive taxation. Think outside of the box a bit, anon.
Also: a surgeon, who spends twelve hours on their feet, making critical, life-saving decisions under pressure, and using a delicate and highly skilled touch on another human being’s literal insides, often doesn’t have the energy or mental focus to then go home and fix a filling and satisfying meal for themselves once that job is done, will get the sustenance they need thanks to a burger-flipper, somewhere. So they can do the whole thing again, the next day.
And therefore, the humble burger-flipper (who also has a strenuous and skilled job, btw, even if it’s different skills), also helps save lives.
We’re all in this together. Stop trying to pit people against one another.
Some random racist: Maybe thinks you’re a little bit thick because you’re black.
An actual nazi: Believes the world will be objectively better off if you’re exterminated.
Proud Boys: Mostly generic conservatives that are American patriots.
Now let’s have a thought experiment. If you have to gamble upon which one of these is going to kill you, are you going to pick the Nazi or are you going to pick one of the other two people?
All of them. Some kill oppressed people by hand, other ones by spreading sentiments or radicalizing politics.
Fascism kills, no matter what it calls itself.
I’d be less worried about self-admitted nazis almost every time.
The thing with self-admitted nazi’s, the ones doing Hitler salutes and wearing swastika’s, is that they’re the laughing stock of pretty much the whole world. They’re so damn obvious other fascists usually don’t wanna be associated with them so they remain small fringe groups.
Alt-right and identitarians and proud boys and trump-supporters and ‘race-realists’ and ‘new nationalists’ who don’t call themselves fascists basically want all the same things and are far more capable of convincing people to follow them or at least tolerate their public existence and recruitment.
That’s what makes them dangerous and that’s why we resist them so pasionately.
Our school used to ask children who were late questions about maths, but those that they can’t answer yet. And then they made kids write down that they don’t know math. My 11yo classmate (who was always great at math) was crying after this.
Oh god, my elementary school was hell.
I remember this one music teacher who, for some reason, REALLY fucking hated autistic kids. I would know, because everyone in my weird therapy group was targeted while everyone else was ignored.
I saw her physically drag a kid out and threaten to get him suspended because he was to scared to dance solo in front of his peers.
There was also “lunch detention,” and they didn’t fuck around with that. They didn’t isolate the students like that, they fucking shoved them in a separate room and forbade them from sitting together or talking. They slowly brought in several teachers and eventually the principal, and they all, one by one, told us that we were horrible, reprehensible people who would never be successful.
And you wanna know HOW you got lunch detention? Not finishing your work on time, even if it was a one-time thing.
State sanctioned child abuse
‘Child abuse’
Y’all are insane.
It may not be child abuse but honestly, some of this shit is fucking insane and harmful to the students than it is helpful.
I mean.
It is abuse.
Emotional Abuse is a thing
I’ve seen or been the target of every thing listed on that image from teachers. Some teachers hit every act on that image. Many of these things were codified into how the school punished all students, like in the examples above.
Education is an hierarchial disciplinary system. Abuse comes at no suprise. And since this system reproduces the hierarchy of society, poor kids, disabled kids, ‘weird’ kids, kids of color etc are the main targets.
Are you actually an anarchist? I never understood people who want anarchy. No offense but I don't think you'd survive, most people wouldn't. Anarchy is the absence of laws and government right?
Yes, I am actually an anarchist. And this is a very interesting thing you just said! Anarchism is actually the absence of unjustpower, not just the absence of laws and government. Anarchists are also in favor of abolishing capitalism and all other kinds of hierarchies, like transphobia, racism, homophobia, etc. But why do you think most people wouldn’t survive?
What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of yourself? Why do you think we need a government and laws to keep us safe? If nothing was illegal, would you just start doing horrible things? I wouldn’t. Nobody I know would, not unless they were going to do those things anyway. And the people that currently control the government and the laws do horrible things, on an absolutely massive scale, every single day - and nothing ever happens to them, since they control the levers of power. Hierarchies only create the ability for terrible people to do terrible things with no consequences. The entire premise of a government, or a nation-state, or any of the current hierarchical methods of control currently in place is that there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
I highly recommend checking out the book Law and Authority by Peter Kropotkin on this issue.
I find the “I don’t think you’d survive” comment particularly
interesting, because everything I’ve read about anarchism and heard from
anarchists, it tends to be focused very heavily on communities. I feel
like most people hear “anarchy”, and imagine some type of “every man for
himself” situation, which afaik doesn’t really represent the majority
of branches of anarchism.
(I just recently read Anarchy
Works, and honestly, the anarchist societies described there sound a lot
more survivable than capitalism for most people)
Nonviolence is racist. I do not mean to exchange insults, and I use the epithet racist only after careful consideration. Nonviolence is an inherently privileged position in the modern context. Besides the fact that the typical pacifist is quite clearly white and middle class, pacifism as an ideology comes from a privileged context. It ignores that violence is already here; that violence is an unavoidable, structurally integral part of the current social hierarchy; and that it is people of color who are most affected by that violence. Pacifism assumes that white people who grew up in the suburbs with all their basic needs met can counsel oppressed people, many of whom are people of color, to suffer patiently under an inconceivably greater violence, until such time as the Great White Father is swayed by the movement’s demands or the pacifists achieve that legendary ‘critical mass.’
—Peter Gelderloos, How Nonviolence Protects the State (via meatthawsmoth)
it is 2018 and i am begging you all to please stop making the LGBT community out to be a collection of freaky abnormal weirdos
freaky abnormal weirdo coming through
Our oppressors already think we are a collection of freaky abnormal weirdos so we might as well fucking own it!
or we could continue to challenge this harmful & tired stereotype that they use as a justification for MURDERING US. just a thought. a fucking… flicker in my mind, y'know.
If you take away their justification for murdering us they will just find a new justification for murdering us
The cause of their hate is not our behavior, we are not responsible for our own oppression, we should not have to fall in line in order to not be killed
God but I love being a freaky abnormal weirdo.
Have you *seen* what this society considers normal and acceptable? We should all be against that. We should all be dedicating our lives to uprooting and burning it like the blight that it is.
Always liberation, never assimilation.
Respectability Politics will not save us. Respectability Politics only leave those of us who can’t or will not “pass” more vulnerable bc they are viewed as being the outliers, the weak, the vulnerable.
When we claim those who are Strange, Freaky, and, indeed, Queer, those of us who don’t pass and never will and don’t want to, we scream back in the faces of our oppressors: “if you want the trans women who don’t pass, if you want the leather daddies, if you want the GNC POC, if you want the butches and the queens and the people who *gasp* ‘reinforce stereotypes,’ then bitch, come get some, because when you fuck with one of us you fuck with all of us,” that’s when we make real progress. Liberation, not assimilation.
I refuse to lick the boots of the Straights and beg them to accept those Queers who are palatable to them. I will demand we are all accepted, no fucking compromises.
The nuclear family is probably the greatest enabler of child abuse, ever.
Putting two people in complete control of another person (who is particularly vulnerable and has few legal rights) and then having no oversight for the whole arrangement is the absolute worst idea.
Families are garbage.
Hahaha wtf
I wouldn’t even know where to start with this. omg.
OP, what would you propose as an alternative to families?
communal child raising
less isolated familial structures in general
children being made aware of how they should and shouldn’t be treated
Some form of child protection services that don’t just believe the parents and assume a child is lying when they report abuse
more legal and counselling services made available to children
I don’t get people that are like “lol, what? that’s so weird, lets laugh at the very notion that traditional families are abusive”.
communal child raising is the traditional family. 70-100 years ago 4 generations lived together in the same house, having 4 grandparents, 6 aunts and 15 cousins around every day was normal.
Things that should be mentioned:
- These communities are not necessarily connected by an biological ties. In a lot of these multigenerational ‘families’, including people in the family who are not relatives or married into the family is totally normal. This has always created a lot more space to support people without families, support people who do now want to partner up and to create communities in which couples who can not have children (like some queer couples but not all & other couples too) can be a part of child raising.
- Having a lot more young people around often means young people learn from each other. In many cultures young people form a non-hierarchial group that learns together and can do a great deal without adult supervision.
The nuclear family doesn’t just facilitate abuse, it facilitates hierarchy. It’s a training school for obedience to authority.
Now, which system would push such a training school strongly so it could get docile obedient citizens? Which system whould push the nuclear family.
I’m not saying it’s capitalism but it’s capitalism.
And then there’s the fact that the 2 parent, nuclear family can be most easily pushed into the pattern where one adult works an extremely exhausting job many hours a day that leaves that adult hardly capable of doing anything else, while the other adult takes on all the other things that adult would otherwise have done: care for children, clean the living space, prepare food, prepare clean clothing, etc. for free. What we know as traditional gender roles.
This way capitalism gets one intensely loyal worker who feels ‘responsible’ for ‘supporting a family’ while all the work to keep that worker going is done for free by an unpaid worker in the home.
And, you know, communities need a lot less stuff. A community of 50 can do just fine with one or two hammers. 25 nuclear families need 25 hammers. The nuclear family demands a huge amount of commodity purchasing.
