We need to talk about all these "gardens"

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday September 25, 2022 · 7:03 PM PDT

2022/09/25 · 19:03

Gardening is growing in popularity, but shouldn't we ask some questions about this new explosive trend? Not farming, but rather little gardens often kept by people without proper farm equipment or training. People say it's fun, harmless.But if that were true why do they get so angry when you ask simple questions? Just last month it was discovered that a local gardener was also a serial killer. This depraved soul used the garden as cover to hide body parts.

But, doctors will tell you that gardening is healthy, a good way to get exercise fresh air. Maybe if you are trying to conceal a murder. Then there is the issue of gardening in schools.

A gardener who was also discovered to have marijuana plants in their home "green house" was in charge of a school's "farm to table program" that taught children as young as 5 how to dig in the dirt and "grow things" Exactly WHAT sort of things? But that's how gardening works.

They teach small children to grow addictive narcotics and get them "hooked on gardening" they tell first graders that they have "green" thumbs. But, since gardens can't be criticized, even when they are full of body parts there is nothing parents can do.

At another school a garden managed by a teacher of 5th grade classes was found to contain poppies. These are used to produce opium, of course and heroin. But the administration at the school was adamant "they aren't those kinds of poppies you weirdos"

Is it really that WIERD to not want your child working for a drug cartel? Not only have gardeners been serial killers, but one guy in California insists on gardening "in the buff" -- since he's a gardener we can't say anything about this. Even if he makes jokes about eggplants.

Gardens are spreading into the office too. Do you have some coworker who insists on keeping potted plants? If they ask you to water them when they are out and you refuse YOU are the bad guy. This is what America has become.

The little flakes of truth...

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday September 17, 2022 · 4:27 PM PDT

2022/09/17 · 16:27

At this point nearly everyone has gotten around to saying that the United States has a fascism problem. I remember watching as more and more "right-wing" pundits crossed that line, I remember feeling growing alarm and being told that speaking the name of what I was witnessing was "alarmist." So, you'd think that this arrival at a consensus among "the left" (people too far left to be called Democrats) and "liberal Democrats" (the more left-leaning part of that party) and even some "moderate Democrats" (such as Joe Biden) would be a big relief.

It hasn't quite worked out that way. The amount of eliminationist, sincerely frightening rhetoric you can find on any randomly selected 10min segment from the Tucker Carlson show is so far off the charts I wonder how we will ever survive this. Because, as the center has been waking up to just how far from reason voices on the right have drifted, that rate of drift has only accelerated. The code words and dog whistles have fallen away and accountability for even the most obvious lies has no meaning. Recently, the talking points have been about immigration. Specifically, trying to link fentanyl to immigration. This isn't just a lie by omission or even exaggeration, it's an outright fabrication. A fairytale. There is no correlation.

Likewise, have you wondered why they keep on trying to pull the "bus immigrants to a blue state" stunt when they have never gotten the outraged and disgusted reaction they expected? Well, all of the right wing news outlets have simply been lying about how the immigrants are received. They take complaints about such trips being organized on dishonest premisses, and without any notice to the receiving cities and pretend that it's the disgust and rejection they anticipated. Because that's how they would react to people in need. Everyone must be that way. Meanwhile in NYC we are thrilled to have more immigrants. Just please don't trick anyone or humiliate anyone by calling them dirty on your news programs.

Just as alarming as the lies, are the very few instances where the right will say something that is, at least in part, true. For example:

Anyone who talks about "over-population" with respect to climate change or any other topic is peddling a deeply dangerous idea. Though the right-wing spin on this topic seems to be more about a zero-sum game where you have to eliminate before you are eliminated. They are correct that looking to population control is bad.
It's also not a good thing that young people who want to start families are putting it off for economic reasons. Though, I suspect we are picturing very different "young people" when we point this one out.
It's bad that two incomes are required to keep a household afloat. (but can we discuss this without telling women to go back to the kitchen?)

On a recent Tucker segment he talked about the immigrants sent to Martha's Vineyard and showed an aerial shot of Obama's mansion. He raged with glee about how many "illegals" (these immigrants were legal) could live in it. It was gloriously populist on a surface level. The kind you rarely hear in US political discourse. But, it was also underlined by racism and the head spinning irony that Tucker himself lives in a mansion on an island for the rich. Oh, but at least he hates the same people "you" do dear viewer. Going layers further ... there is very little difference in the immigration policies of the two parties. Democrats are a bit better, but it is only a little bit. The broad trends are very much the same. The US is deeply dependent on immigrant labor that is purposely kept in the shadows to keep wages low. The borders are cruel places. Obama deported more people than any recent president. It didn't matter. Simply talking about the issue as if those involved are fully human is crime enough for the right.

Democrats can never win by out-republicaning republicans. They will simply lie and say you never did any of those things. And look, you've become a monster just to win. Was that worth it? Is Obama's house a capitalist obscenity? Probably.

Could many many people live there when he hardly even uses it? Of course! Is it disturbing that this is the only populist talk, put into such stark and simple terms we will hear on US TV? Deeply so.That it exists at all means that there is thirst for such talk, and look who is controlling the conversation. And what hateful ends they will seek to direct it to realize.

Has "Racism" always existed?

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday August 23, 2022 · 11:21 AM PDT

2022/08/23 · 11:21

Let’s start with slavery. Conservatives like to stress the fact that America didn’t invent slavery. While it is true that slavery has existed throughout human history, all over the world. In most cases, people became slaves due to being on the losing side of a war, as punishment, through debt. What made a slave was extrinsic. Even if enslaved for all your life, there was at least the notion that you *could have been* something else... under other circumstances. America didn’t invent slavery, but the kind of slavery practiced in the New World was unique in contrast to other instances of slavery in history.

The pseudoscience of “Racism” teaches that all of humanity can be divided into discrete categories of people and that black people are the category intrinsically suited to slavery. Hence, all children of black people are slaves, even if the father is white. This is the fundamental concept behind chattel slavery. Racism was a new way of implementing ethnic prejudice (ethnic prejudice, like slavery, has always existed in human history) Racism provided a justification for using generation after generation of people as low-cost labor. Racism built fortunes. The New World would have been worthless without billions of man-hours of stolen labor from enslaved people, some of whom were my ancestors.

This is why saying "racism goes both ways" is nonsense. This is why saying that racism has always existed between groups of people in human history is incorrect. While "Ethnic prejudice/bigotry" can go in any direction, the theory of racism was specifically about the inferiority of black people in an ordering of all people that places white people at the top. There was no such thing as "race" as we know it today before the theory of racism. This is not to say that people didn't have prejudice or stereotypes about groups. Racism is particular theory of "science" and religion. Attempts to treat racism as a synonym for "ethnic prejudice" erase this history and make ongoing impacts of racism less visible— and thus harder to fight.

To make chattel slavery possible required a whole host of new myths and theories. Slavers needed to believe that all black people are unable to govern ourselves, that we only may live productively under constant application of violent punishment to prevent our inherent criminal and disorganized nature from ruining society. This idea persists to this day in theories about black people being inherently criminal, less intelligent, oversexed and lazy.

It's not hard to find statistics that describe differences between the lives of people based on race. From lifespan, to income, education, to contact with the criminal justice system, black people fall behind. If you believe this is due to some intrinsic quality of black people or some intrinsic quality of culture created and propagated by black people calling these differences unjust is absurd. Efforts to address these inequalities are, then, giving black people more than we deserve.

Statements like “everyone is a little racist” can be very comforting to some. It’s fascinating to me how stridently some people will defend these statements. Why not just say “everyone has prejudices” or “everyone has some bigoted views” or “everyone has internalized some ethnic prejudices” or even, (cutting to the heart of the real reason I suspect people say this) “black people have prejudices about white people ” All of these later phrases are true, and convey the same ideas intended by “everyone is a little racist” the only difference? Only by saying “everyone is a little racist” do we also get to generalize the idea of racism. Racism is simply another form of ethnic prejudice. Just as we might say slavery in the US is just another form of slavery and there has always been slavery.

It would be like saying “everyone is a little anti- Semitic” to mean “everyone has some prejudices about religion.” But anti- semitism is a particular kind of religious, ethnic and sometimes racial bigotry. It has a specific history.

The same thing is true of racism!

Race is, of course, totally "made up" -- arbitrary, fairly new in human history. Race is not only "made up" it is structured to place black people at the bottom and white people at the top of an imaginary hierarchy. Notions like the one drop rule, white purity, are embedded in our ideas about race to this day. Even though, we, those people denied a nationality/ethnic identity, have built culture within the boundaries of race. (for Black American culture the effort has been almost compensatory it its richness)

An old "comedy song" from Will Heelan and Fred Helf was Every Race Has a Flag But the C**n (1900) this song struck a nerve with black artists of the time-- its ignorance distilled the unique issue with being black in "multi-ethnic" America. There is no identity for a Black person descendent from slaves outside of the (oppressive) framework of race. The only real option is to redefine that framework from the inside out. Every black person who is beautiful, intelligent, remarkable, compassionate, shocking, creative... every kind of human achievement that occurs within the framework of blackness destabilizes that old pseudoscience of racism and recreates a black identity. This is an incomplete project. Watering down the meaning of the word racism only makes it more difficult.

No. Nobody is "transing" the tomboys. A deep look at why.

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 21, 2022 · 1:15 PM PDT

2022/08/21 · 13:15

A current popular argument amongst people who question trans identities uses the "heartfelt" stories of adult women who grew up as tomboys spreading fear about the possibility of girls being "funneled" into lives as trans men. This is something that has never happened. It's also totally contrary to the entire ethos of being supportive and accepting of trans people and everyone.

So, this essay might seem unneeded. The idea I'm debunking is obviously flawed. However, I do think the question "how would my childhood be different growing up with trans acceptance?" can open some scary doors for some people (and some wonderful doors for others) for a certain type of person it could be a very effective argument. I wrote this to dissect in detail how and why it fails.

Let's just say, this is a question I've asked myself. But, I concluded that such acceptance and education about the variable nature of gender would have *helped* me. I'm sad that I didn't have access to it-- even though I don't think my life would be radically different, I could have avoided some emotional suffering and confusion. I want that for everyone. Trans positive, informed childhood isn't just beneficial to trans kids. It suggests a better relationship with gender for us all.

Poll

408 votes Show Results

Did you see any of the videos about tomboys and trans fear mongering?

408 votes Vote Now!

Did you see any of the videos about tomboys and trans fear mongering?

yes

29 votes

371 votes

uncertain

8 votes

a man in my science fiction forum drew this graph for me to explain why women are bad at math

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday November 18, 2017 · 1:40 PM PST

2017/11/18 · 13:40

I hang out in a science fiction forum and someone pointed out that we didn’t have that many female members. So, some of the dudes are like “well women are just not inclined to be interested in science. It’s biological.” This whole argument starts and at one point this dude draws the above graph because he thinks I don’t understand how distributions work. Here is the full context:

Not only is the graph just something he drew, but the axis make no sense.

The thing is, this happens to me all of the time. Often, during arguments people will try to make a statement that sounds… mathematical to bolster their point.

Notice how he instructs me to “start visualizing statistical distributions.” There is nothing in the way that I discussed statistical matters that could have indicated that I wasn’t familiar with “statistical distributions” ...also I’m a mathematician. Perhaps that’s why massive errors like this annoy me so much when they come from people who claim to know better.

Here is another example from a different guy on a different topic. This one was arguing with me about racism. He linked to some stats that he claimed backed his observations. It turned out he had no idea what the stats were really saying:

Please don’t be like these guys. Please don’t abuse mathematics and statistics because you think they will intimidate people. Please don’t underestimate women.

"Working class."

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday October 18, 2017 · 4:33 PM PDT

2017/10/18 · 16:33

When you see the words:

"Working class."

What comes to mind? It was probably not that different from the image attached to this post. (That was the first image google delivered. This is the type of image often used in TV news.) The term "working class" is generally associated with whiteness in the US. In more recent years you are more likely to hear "white working class" or even "white working class men" which is at least more honest. You will almost never hear "black working class" --I think this is by design. "Working class" has a certain connotation in US politics.

Let's explore why the way this phrase is used may further white supremacy, capitalist interests and even sexism.

There are not many trade unions in the US. The phrase "working class" is closely associated with unions. How could this contribute to the racialization of this term?
How are trade union jobs vs. domestic, service, care-taking and janitorial labor viewed differently? Do you think most people think of a hotel maid as working class? What about a restaurant worker?
Have you ever encountered a person who used "working class" as short hand for "white working class men" ?
How does the close association of work with whiteness play into existing racial narratives and stereotypes.
What are other terms that are similarly loaded? (real american, thug, corn-fed, urban)
Why do you think there are so many ways to avoid mentioning race directly in American political discourse?

Racism is built into the floor plan of NYC museum.

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday August 26, 2017 · 2:29 PM PDT

2017/08/26 · 14:29

I posted this here in December 2008. It was not received well. Many people said I was being unreasonable. Given the important conversations we have been having about monuments and how those monuments can encode white supremacist ideas, I thought I would post it again. To see if anything has changed.

"Bring something to the culture fair that is important to people with your heritage or ethnicity." The teacher explained. The room buzzed with noise. One girls hand shot up: "But I don't have an ethnicity! I'm just normal."
Several of the students had come to this conclusion. I remember listening and wondering if "having an ethnicity" meant that you were abnormal. You could spot my ethnicity from a mile away. I wondered what it was like to be "just normal" --what did that mean? I don't remember how the teacher resolved it, but of course all of us have an ethnicity and a culture. No on is "just normal."
When I was older I went to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. You could not get me out of that place I loved it so much. Though I did find the various "halls of people" a bit confusing. At the time they had hall for African people, Asian people and Native Americans-- But no hall of "European people" and no "Post 1650 American people" --- no wonder some people don't think they have an ethnicity! Really the more I think about it most of the non-prehistoric human artifacts in the Museum of Natural History should be in an Art Museum instead. The displays of the people of the world didn't do a vary good job showing the historical progression in those places-- it made it seem as if in Africa time had stopped. There were no eras, no revolutions no kingdoms to rise or fall just a static collection of masks and headdresses-- The Hall of Asian people was not much better. It was also very static. And none of this is what I'd call "Natural History." Natural history is the history of animals and rocks, evolution and such-- Human history, while intertwined, has a very different scale and character.

It seems that not much has changed. This kind of organization of the human history encourages the view that some of us are normal while others "have an ethnicity." It's the view that lets one think of Mexican markets and Japanese markets as ethnic, but Stop-n-Shop is just "normal." Stop-n-Shop is normal only in the local sense-- On a global scale it is ethnic. This view is built in to our cultural institutions, and our education system. It is critical for a multicultural nation like the United States to work to try to improve the balance and of our historical perspectives. I focus on the US because we must do this or our education system will continue to alienate and divide young people who have "an ethnicity."

easy to forget

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 01, 2017 · 9:08 AM PST

2017/02/01 · 09:08

It was easy to forget, walking the streets of Manhattan with a little money in her pocket. It was easy to forget that she needed to buy a gun.

Things will be normal, until suddenly they will not be normal. Not that even the normal state of this nation was once able to satisfy her desire for justice. But no, she had to be better than reactive. The new administration had done nothing, said noting to assuage her fears. Rights and freedoms are fragile things, and they can be taken away if those who control the military and the police decide it is n their best interest to do so.

The other terrifying scenario was that of escalating hate crimes paired with apathetic enforcement and outright support from the police and justice system. Of course, such collusion was already happening, but it was nothing like the 30s when white cops would don their white hoods right in the police station before heading out for a good lynching. That could start happening again and she needed to save that little bit of money and buy a gun.

She hoped if she were armed and if she made enough noise she might make herself a less desirable target. "I will fight back. I may loose, but I will make them hurt for coming for me." The anger felt a bit better than the copper taste of fear lingering in her mouth.

Am I over reacting? She tried to think of a reason why such a thing would not happen but none came to mind. Had not humans always done this? In this same country? to people just like her. "oh how I need a gun" she thought.

She pictured her last moments over and over, infinite permutations all ending with death. A would she be shot after being reported for her political activity? Shot while answering her door. Beaten and then shot for secrets she didn't posses? Shot once while running but then later in the chest to make it look like a good shoot? Being armed would not be enough. She would need to stop being alone. She thought about how she'd seen people fill the streets with their bodies and with noise and she wondered if they could all work together, if they could be an army. "oh how I need an army " she thought.

@futurebird

educating liberal moderates on purpose of mass protest

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 23, 2016 · 3:51 PM PST

2016/12/23 · 15:51

I think we need to work on educating liberal moderates on purpose of mass protest. Too often they see it only as a way of influencing elected officials and possibly companies through bad publicity.

The problem with this view of protest is you end up trying to make your protest look "peaceful and good" in the eyes of media and it is just way too easy to discredit a massive group of peaceful protesters with just one person who gets out of line.

So, if protest isn't about good publicity then what is it about?

It's about something much more frightening, something liberal moderates do not like to think about: It's a show of force. It's literally showing how many people a government will need to subdue physically.

Why do militaries have parades? For the same reason we need mass protest. In open conflict we can't hope to win, but we can make it really expensive and inconvenient.

This is the "stick" to peaceful protest's carrot. And it is essential. It has been essential in every mass social movement that has had any success.

But most people I don't know don't even see this.

that time democrats raised 13k overnight for the GOP

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 06, 2016 · 9:29 AM PST

2016/12/06 · 09:29

http://time.com/4533512/democrats-republicans-north-carolina-firebomb-gofundme/

I just want to take this moment to commemorate that time democrats raised 13k overnight for the GOP...in a swing state rife with voter suppression...while an authoritarian ran for office. Then these same people explained to everyone who said it was a bad idea to help the GOP that "you are not thinking strategically" as if our objections were childish.

We lost that state, and I will not pretend this donation was the primary reason. It wasn’t. But, like many who donated, I think the symbolism of this action was far more significant than the immediate results.

Because, beyond the monetary support, I wonder how much this money further normalized the cause of the right? I mean, they can't be that bad if we still respect each other enough to help in a crisis. Right?

And no matter how you look at it paying up like that was taking on some of the blame. Nobel in some ways, but that nobility looks far more like guilt to outsiders. Even myself.

This event? This was my breaking point.

Dream American.

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 02, 2016 · 7:01 AM PST

2016/12/02 · 07:01

From https://www.instagram.com/p/4oyGIDHJVs/

In my dream last night I saw this little snaggle-toothed girl sitting on a chair. She had red white and blue beads in her cornrows and a red white and blue party dress. She was sitting on a chair that was much too large for her.

"I'm America!" She said grinning.

"Is this a metaphor?" I thought.

"No, that's my NAME, America. I'm not dead yet. I'm real tough!" She seemed cheerful.

"But are you OK?" I thought.

"I'm OK..." She didn't sound like she meant it.

"I'm real strong, but I'm not immortal. You need to know. I'm not immortal."

"I know-" I tried to say out loud. But, she was gone.

The opposition starts TODAY!

futurebird

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 30, 2016 · 7:48 AM PST

2016/11/30 · 07:48

Let's call our Senators and tell them to support Warren in her opposition to the “21st Century Cures bill.” Her reasoning is excellent (see link) and this is a part of a larger strategy of encouraging our democratic representatives and senators to be less compromising with Republicans. This will get bigger when trump is in office, but republicans already think they can do whatever they want. Let's tell our Senators to show them that just isn't true.

Tell your Senator "Do not support the 21st Century Cures bill. It's not a compromise with republicans it's extortion. Please show us how you will fight Trump."

Our senators need to know that business as usual has ended with this election. And we expect them to act in radically different ways. Let them know you are watching their every move. Every vote, every bill every compromise.... we see it, and we will remember.