From The Guardian:
America's strike wave is a rare – and beautiful – sight to behold
Individually, workers are at the mercy of employers' whims. But when they combined their voices and the withholding of their labour power, employers find themselves at their mercy. Workers are stronger together, and strikes are a means by which workers can win their demands, whether it's higher pay, better working conditions, improved benefits, etc.
And strikes can also be a means of further radicalizing workers and make them see not only their strength in solidarity, but their worth and the worth of their labour power, emboldening them to throw off the shackles of capital and reclaim the ownership of that labour power and its fruits. Demands could (and should) go beyond things like pay scales and include things like mechanisms of meaningful worker control, ownership, and decision-making. That's one of the reasons employers and the state expend so much time and effort trying to bust unions and crush strikes—their interference with the realization of profit (the lifeblood of capital) and their potential for worker empowerment.
As Luis Feliz Leon wrote earlier this year, "The language of a strike wave is the language of radical optimism in the face of untenable conditions." And the more support these striking workers have, from us and from the people we elect, and the more radical their leadership, the bigger their victories will be and the more they'll inspire others to do likewise. Small scale strikes, like those at individual workplaces, can win better wages and working conditions as many of these strike victories illustrate. But large scale strikes, such as general strikes, can win us even more, like a better socioeconomic system. Our solidarity is our greatest strength, and our labour power is our greatest weapon to effect change.
Sunday, November 7, 2021
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
i guess i'm a spinozist now?
I've found it difficult to put my spiritual/religious beliefs into words, often relying on the words of others to articulate them. Recently, for example, I've been delving into Spinoza's Ethics (especially through the Seekers of Unity series), and I find myself very drawn towards this work, as many others before me have been.
I'd definitely say that I'm a believer in panentheism, i.e., the idea that what we call God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and the world are interrelated and that, ultimately, they are of the same substance. What we perceive to be distinctions between things like mind and body, for instance, are merely distinctions between modes, attributes, or appearances of phenomena that arise and cease through the complex causality that our individual minds conceptually perceive. We see the movement of the parts but not the stillness of the whole. But just as the individual waves of the ocean — due to things like the movements of winds and currents and the gravitational pull of the moon — appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world of the ocean they inhabit, they are in reality all of the same substance, i.e., water, out which they arise from, return to, and are but modes of being of. In much the same way, our individual selves appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world we inhabit. And while the water itself can be said to have inherent existence, needing nothing else to exist or be conceived, the modes or properties of the waves cannot and need the substance of water to exist and be perceived.
From the perspective of the human mind, the world appears as one thing and we as another, and so too does 'God' or that which transcends it all. We are in the world, and ultimate reality lies outside even that. This ultimate reality or what we call God is something that seems alien to us and beyond our grasp. However, in truth, we are more like the waves of the ocean, passively unaware of our essence and the substance that makes our modes of being possible, an essence which is empty of inherent existence yet the same essence as the world as well as that which both lies beyond it and underlies it, or maybe better, contains it all. From the Buddhist POV, I think this idea is mirrored in Nagarjuna's line, "Samsara does not have the slightest distinction from Nirvana. Nirvana does not have the slightest distinction from Samsara" (Verses from the Center, 25:19). Samsara represents the world and nirvana represents that which transcends the world and lies outside of ordinary human experience. And while from our human POV there are noticeable distinctions between samsara and nirvana, conditioned and unconditioned, world and God, mind and body, us and others, or anything else we can differentiate, from the ultimate POV there's not the slightest distinction between them; the distinctions are illusory.
Interestingly enough, Buddhism also defines 'the world' or 'the all' in terms of our individual, sensory experience of it, i.e., "the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and aromas, tongue and flavors, body and tactile sensations, intellect and ideas" (SN 35.23). What we know is constrained in many ways by the nature of the human mind and where/how consciousness 'lands and grows' due to where "there is passion, delight, and craving for the nutriment of consciousness" (SN 12.64). But these sensory experiences locked into the apprehension of the modes of expression, being, or appearance of phenomena are illusory and comparable to a glob of foam floating down the Ganges, a bubble, a mirage, a hollow banana tree, a magic trick—i.e., empty and void (SN 22.95). It's as if our minds are conditioned to grasp the attributes of the waves, whose individual existence are inconstant, imperfect, unsatisfactory, empty and void because they do not exist from their own side, and not the substance they are an attribute or mode of. Nevertheless, understanding the causality of the conditioned world can act as a cause for the human mind's understanding of the reality of things as they are, abusing us of our notions of separateness and inherent selfness, thereby touching the deathless element through ceasing the mental processes of craving and clinging and 'I-making and my-making.' Clinging to our identity as an independent wave is ultimately unsatisfactory and stressful because it traps us within the causal modality of arising and ceasing, birth and death; letting go of that clinging 'unbinds' one and opens them up to experiencing the waterness of the waves.
The true reality, on the other hand, is one that can be said to be unborn, unmade, unconditioned, existing from its own side, stable, eternal. Spinoza reasons that this reality is analogous to God or substance, "that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception" (Ethics, I, Def. III). In Buddhism, this is somewhat comparable to nirvana, the "unborn, unbecome, unmade, unfabricated" (Ud 8:3). This reality or substance or whatever you want to call it is akin to the primordial water that's modified into all the various waves the we conceive of and that form the basis for our subject-object dualism and the illusion that we are one wave distinct from all the others and the ocean we all inhabit, when in fact everything that we see, hear, taste, touch, feel, and cognize is of the same substance or reality that comprises what sees, hears, tastes, touches, feels, and cognizes. Its true essence is eternal oneness, while its attributes or expressions are infinite.
The Buddha demonstrates that through the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment, the human mind can cognize nirvana, the unconditioned, the deathless element, etc. making the mind into the mind of enlightenment characterized by 'consciousness without feature.' Spinoza, on the other hand, argues that "the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God; thus when we say, that the human mind perceives this or that, we make the assertion, that God has this or that idea, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind, or in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind; and when we say that God has this or that idea, not only in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind, but also in so far as he, simultaneously with the human mind, has the further idea of another thing, we assert that the human mind perceives a thing in part or inadequately" (Ethics, II, Prop XI, Corollary) and that "the clear and distinct ideas of the mind are as necessarily true as the ideas of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLIII), suggesting a rational means of achieving the same type of knowledge: "The knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God which every idea involves is adequate and perfect. The human mind has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLVI&XLVII).
I realize that the analogy of waves and water breaks down in the sense that the wind and gravity which represent the causal conditions that shape the waves aren't themselves water, as well as the fact that the element of water is comprised of atoms that in turn are further divided, while these laws of nature and all the particles within it are but part of nature itself, whose reality is said to be singular, self-contained, one infinite substance. But I think it conveys the general idea clearly enough, especially if we compare the wind in the analogy to the passions of the mind fuelled by ignorance and greed, hatred, and delusion churning the water of the ocean into waves, and which when stilled give rise to an experience of peace and an ending to the wave's rounds of rebirth.
That leads me to also say that I'm a perennialist in the sense that I strongly believe this reality — whether we call it God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. — is a unity that paradoxically contains or is capable of infinite modes of expression, being, or appearance. And I see in each spiritual tradition a sincere search for and genuine understanding of this unity through a combination of imagination, reason, and intuition, with the first two arising from our dualistic awareness, and the latter achieved through nondual consciousness. The human mind, as a dependently arisen product of causes and conditions, is the experience of samsara; the mind of God is the experience of nirvana (the deathless element often alluded to in Buddhism = Spinoza' one eternal substance). And they are one. We are ultimately one with all of the things we seek to know, understand, and love. The human mind, in so far as it is characterized by its particular mode of being, much like the temporal wave in the ocean, is finite and limited, and our ignorance of things are as they are blocks the light of this understanding from illuminating our mind. But the human mind, in so far as it shares its substance with God, strives to understand itself and seek truth in its existence.
Our salvation or enlightenment is achieved through the process of overcoming our ignorance of reality by releasing our mind's grasping of the appearances and letting go of our self-identity view, thereby opening ourselves up to an intellectual understanding and/or love of God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and realizing our own nature, or as Ruksana put it in The Circle, "real recognizing real." In Buddhism, one is encouraged to develop selflessness in regards to the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and sensory consciousness in order to achieve this realization. Judaism has a similar concept in Kabbalah called bittul, 'selflessness' or 'self-negation.' In Christianity and Islam, one is encouraged to die to yourself or 'die before you die.' Another method involves love, effectively doing the same thing. In Buddhism, for instance, metta or loving-kindness can also be salvific. And this method seems even more predominant in Christianity. Jesus says to love God and love others as ourselves (Mt 22:37-39). And we are all interconnected, so loving others as ourselves is also loving ourselves. And John goes even further, saying God is love, and it's that act of unconditional love which becomes the positive form of selflessness that equally removes the mental passions and clinging that cloud our vision and prevent us from truly seeing things as they are. So ultimately we're left with God loving God, which in reality is just the act of loving itself—a singular, loving or unbound state of consciousness free from misperceptions and passions and sense of self.
While I've spent a lot more time with Buddhism, I've also found myself drawn strongly towards Christianity in recent years. In Christianity, I see the inheritor of the Greek Mystery cults and Platonic philosophy that, in the ancient world, used both ecstatic and rational means to point practitioners towards God, the One, the Form of the Good, Logos. And in Jesus, I see a person who had such mystical experiences and intuitive realizations, seeing himself in God and God in himself, unifying his individual mode of being with the substance underlying it, reflecting and pointing towards this constant and eternal state of consciousness. And just as John states that God is love and whoever is without love doesn't know God (John 4:7-8), Spinoza states that, "The intellectual love of the mind towards God is that very love of God whereby God loves himself, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he can be explained through the essence of the human mind regarded under the form of eternity; in other words, the intellectual love of the mind towards God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself" (Ethics, V, Prop XXXVI).
What I find eminently important in all of this, however, is how each of these traditions and ways of talking about experience and reality agree on the reality and power of interconnectedness. Whether in terms of causality (such as in the focus of actions and dependent co-arising in Buddhism) or the oneness of reality (such as in the relational nature of the trinity), each of these approaches make interconnectedness a centerpiece. As Clare Carlisle puts it in an article for the Guardian: "Spinoza's world view brings to the fore two features of life: dependence and connectedness. Each wave is dependent on the sea, and because it is part of the sea it is connected to every other wave. The movements of one wave will influence all the rest. Likewise, each being is dependent on God, and as a part of God it is connected to every other being. As we move about and act in the world, we affect others, and we are in turn affected by everything we come into contact with." And this understanding not only gives us insight into the nature of our world, but in how to live a life characterized by virtue, freedom, and happiness through our knowledge of causality and, ultimately, love of God. Because the more still we, as waves, can make ourselves, the closer we are able to come to experiencing our own waterness.
I'd definitely say that I'm a believer in panentheism, i.e., the idea that what we call God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and the world are interrelated and that, ultimately, they are of the same substance. What we perceive to be distinctions between things like mind and body, for instance, are merely distinctions between modes, attributes, or appearances of phenomena that arise and cease through the complex causality that our individual minds conceptually perceive. We see the movement of the parts but not the stillness of the whole. But just as the individual waves of the ocean — due to things like the movements of winds and currents and the gravitational pull of the moon — appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world of the ocean they inhabit, they are in reality all of the same substance, i.e., water, out which they arise from, return to, and are but modes of being of. In much the same way, our individual selves appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world we inhabit. And while the water itself can be said to have inherent existence, needing nothing else to exist or be conceived, the modes or properties of the waves cannot and need the substance of water to exist and be perceived.
From the perspective of the human mind, the world appears as one thing and we as another, and so too does 'God' or that which transcends it all. We are in the world, and ultimate reality lies outside even that. This ultimate reality or what we call God is something that seems alien to us and beyond our grasp. However, in truth, we are more like the waves of the ocean, passively unaware of our essence and the substance that makes our modes of being possible, an essence which is empty of inherent existence yet the same essence as the world as well as that which both lies beyond it and underlies it, or maybe better, contains it all. From the Buddhist POV, I think this idea is mirrored in Nagarjuna's line, "Samsara does not have the slightest distinction from Nirvana. Nirvana does not have the slightest distinction from Samsara" (Verses from the Center, 25:19). Samsara represents the world and nirvana represents that which transcends the world and lies outside of ordinary human experience. And while from our human POV there are noticeable distinctions between samsara and nirvana, conditioned and unconditioned, world and God, mind and body, us and others, or anything else we can differentiate, from the ultimate POV there's not the slightest distinction between them; the distinctions are illusory.
Interestingly enough, Buddhism also defines 'the world' or 'the all' in terms of our individual, sensory experience of it, i.e., "the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and aromas, tongue and flavors, body and tactile sensations, intellect and ideas" (SN 35.23). What we know is constrained in many ways by the nature of the human mind and where/how consciousness 'lands and grows' due to where "there is passion, delight, and craving for the nutriment of consciousness" (SN 12.64). But these sensory experiences locked into the apprehension of the modes of expression, being, or appearance of phenomena are illusory and comparable to a glob of foam floating down the Ganges, a bubble, a mirage, a hollow banana tree, a magic trick—i.e., empty and void (SN 22.95). It's as if our minds are conditioned to grasp the attributes of the waves, whose individual existence are inconstant, imperfect, unsatisfactory, empty and void because they do not exist from their own side, and not the substance they are an attribute or mode of. Nevertheless, understanding the causality of the conditioned world can act as a cause for the human mind's understanding of the reality of things as they are, abusing us of our notions of separateness and inherent selfness, thereby touching the deathless element through ceasing the mental processes of craving and clinging and 'I-making and my-making.' Clinging to our identity as an independent wave is ultimately unsatisfactory and stressful because it traps us within the causal modality of arising and ceasing, birth and death; letting go of that clinging 'unbinds' one and opens them up to experiencing the waterness of the waves.
The true reality, on the other hand, is one that can be said to be unborn, unmade, unconditioned, existing from its own side, stable, eternal. Spinoza reasons that this reality is analogous to God or substance, "that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception" (Ethics, I, Def. III). In Buddhism, this is somewhat comparable to nirvana, the "unborn, unbecome, unmade, unfabricated" (Ud 8:3). This reality or substance or whatever you want to call it is akin to the primordial water that's modified into all the various waves the we conceive of and that form the basis for our subject-object dualism and the illusion that we are one wave distinct from all the others and the ocean we all inhabit, when in fact everything that we see, hear, taste, touch, feel, and cognize is of the same substance or reality that comprises what sees, hears, tastes, touches, feels, and cognizes. Its true essence is eternal oneness, while its attributes or expressions are infinite.
The Buddha demonstrates that through the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment, the human mind can cognize nirvana, the unconditioned, the deathless element, etc. making the mind into the mind of enlightenment characterized by 'consciousness without feature.' Spinoza, on the other hand, argues that "the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God; thus when we say, that the human mind perceives this or that, we make the assertion, that God has this or that idea, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind, or in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind; and when we say that God has this or that idea, not only in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind, but also in so far as he, simultaneously with the human mind, has the further idea of another thing, we assert that the human mind perceives a thing in part or inadequately" (Ethics, II, Prop XI, Corollary) and that "the clear and distinct ideas of the mind are as necessarily true as the ideas of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLIII), suggesting a rational means of achieving the same type of knowledge: "The knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God which every idea involves is adequate and perfect. The human mind has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLVI&XLVII).
I realize that the analogy of waves and water breaks down in the sense that the wind and gravity which represent the causal conditions that shape the waves aren't themselves water, as well as the fact that the element of water is comprised of atoms that in turn are further divided, while these laws of nature and all the particles within it are but part of nature itself, whose reality is said to be singular, self-contained, one infinite substance. But I think it conveys the general idea clearly enough, especially if we compare the wind in the analogy to the passions of the mind fuelled by ignorance and greed, hatred, and delusion churning the water of the ocean into waves, and which when stilled give rise to an experience of peace and an ending to the wave's rounds of rebirth.
That leads me to also say that I'm a perennialist in the sense that I strongly believe this reality — whether we call it God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. — is a unity that paradoxically contains or is capable of infinite modes of expression, being, or appearance. And I see in each spiritual tradition a sincere search for and genuine understanding of this unity through a combination of imagination, reason, and intuition, with the first two arising from our dualistic awareness, and the latter achieved through nondual consciousness. The human mind, as a dependently arisen product of causes and conditions, is the experience of samsara; the mind of God is the experience of nirvana (the deathless element often alluded to in Buddhism = Spinoza' one eternal substance). And they are one. We are ultimately one with all of the things we seek to know, understand, and love. The human mind, in so far as it is characterized by its particular mode of being, much like the temporal wave in the ocean, is finite and limited, and our ignorance of things are as they are blocks the light of this understanding from illuminating our mind. But the human mind, in so far as it shares its substance with God, strives to understand itself and seek truth in its existence.
Our salvation or enlightenment is achieved through the process of overcoming our ignorance of reality by releasing our mind's grasping of the appearances and letting go of our self-identity view, thereby opening ourselves up to an intellectual understanding and/or love of God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and realizing our own nature, or as Ruksana put it in The Circle, "real recognizing real." In Buddhism, one is encouraged to develop selflessness in regards to the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and sensory consciousness in order to achieve this realization. Judaism has a similar concept in Kabbalah called bittul, 'selflessness' or 'self-negation.' In Christianity and Islam, one is encouraged to die to yourself or 'die before you die.' Another method involves love, effectively doing the same thing. In Buddhism, for instance, metta or loving-kindness can also be salvific. And this method seems even more predominant in Christianity. Jesus says to love God and love others as ourselves (Mt 22:37-39). And we are all interconnected, so loving others as ourselves is also loving ourselves. And John goes even further, saying God is love, and it's that act of unconditional love which becomes the positive form of selflessness that equally removes the mental passions and clinging that cloud our vision and prevent us from truly seeing things as they are. So ultimately we're left with God loving God, which in reality is just the act of loving itself—a singular, loving or unbound state of consciousness free from misperceptions and passions and sense of self.
While I've spent a lot more time with Buddhism, I've also found myself drawn strongly towards Christianity in recent years. In Christianity, I see the inheritor of the Greek Mystery cults and Platonic philosophy that, in the ancient world, used both ecstatic and rational means to point practitioners towards God, the One, the Form of the Good, Logos. And in Jesus, I see a person who had such mystical experiences and intuitive realizations, seeing himself in God and God in himself, unifying his individual mode of being with the substance underlying it, reflecting and pointing towards this constant and eternal state of consciousness. And just as John states that God is love and whoever is without love doesn't know God (John 4:7-8), Spinoza states that, "The intellectual love of the mind towards God is that very love of God whereby God loves himself, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he can be explained through the essence of the human mind regarded under the form of eternity; in other words, the intellectual love of the mind towards God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself" (Ethics, V, Prop XXXVI).
What I find eminently important in all of this, however, is how each of these traditions and ways of talking about experience and reality agree on the reality and power of interconnectedness. Whether in terms of causality (such as in the focus of actions and dependent co-arising in Buddhism) or the oneness of reality (such as in the relational nature of the trinity), each of these approaches make interconnectedness a centerpiece. As Clare Carlisle puts it in an article for the Guardian: "Spinoza's world view brings to the fore two features of life: dependence and connectedness. Each wave is dependent on the sea, and because it is part of the sea it is connected to every other wave. The movements of one wave will influence all the rest. Likewise, each being is dependent on God, and as a part of God it is connected to every other being. As we move about and act in the world, we affect others, and we are in turn affected by everything we come into contact with." And this understanding not only gives us insight into the nature of our world, but in how to live a life characterized by virtue, freedom, and happiness through our knowledge of causality and, ultimately, love of God. Because the more still we, as waves, can make ourselves, the closer we are able to come to experiencing our own waterness.
Saturday, August 21, 2021
onlyfans fucks sex workers
So the news that Onlyfans is banning pretty much all sexually explicit content just dropped recently. While I know it’s still difficult for many people to talk openly about sex and sex work despite sex being a natural part of life and omnipresent in TV, movies, literature, and pretty much everywhere else in life, this is definitely worth pointing out and condemning, the main reason being the impact on sex workers, who are often placed in extremely dangerous and exploitative situations due to a combination of prudish western/Judeo-Christian sexual mores and laws specifically targeting them criminally and censoring their content. The generally negative cultural attitude towards sex work, laws like SESTA/FOSTA, and moves like the banning of sexually-explicit content on sites like OnlyFans only serve to push those who choose sex work — whether out of desperation or because they enjoy it — to do so under more dangerous conditions, driving them to work with predatory people or companies who exploit them due to the difficulty of finding safe and legal venues for their work, and making it more difficult for them to earn a living while compelling them to take more risky chances.
In the past, primarily due to the criminalization of prostitution and other forms of sex work, most sex workers were at the mercy of shady pimps and porn companies that didn't pay well and often abused the women and men who made living as sex workers. While not quite the level sex workers owning the means of production and distribution, platforms like Onlyfans help to give sex workers a central place where they can safely sell their content and profit off of their own labour, putting them more in control of that labour and the fruits of it. But after Onlyfans grew into the giant online presence that it's become by catering to sex workers and their clients/consumers, building itself and its capital off of the former's labour, the site is bending to the will of finance capital and suspending all sexually-explicit content and citing the prohibitive financial and labour cost of verifying all content, putting many of the people who made this site into a very difficult financial position. Most seem to be saying the same thing, that the news hit them out of the blue and many aren’t sure what they’re going to do. And this may be true for other similar sites who use payment processors such as Mastercard.
These companies, along with Christian groups and hacks like Nicholas Kristof, have used the very real evils of things like sex trafficking and lack of moderation of large porn sites regarding things like revenge porn, non-consensual sex or release of private pictures and videos, sexually explicit content of underage women and men, etc. to target all sex workers and the platforms they use to produce ethical porn that's legal and consensual and that they themselves control and profit from. While all labour is treated unfairly under capitalism, what has made sex work so exceptionally dangerous and seedy has been the unwillingness of western capitalism to fully recognize people's bodily autonomy and the legitimacy of sex work as real labour. And while it’s certainly a good idea to try and make sure the people producing this kind of content are of legal age and doing so of their own free will, the means by which they are trying to achieve this is directly harming the very people it's supposedly intended to protect.
Besides the generally impact to sex workers in terms of negatively affecting their financial stability and safety, what stands out to me is the role finance capital itself is playing in all of this. As one person put it on Twitter, "Wow, [Mastercard] is basically forcing policies onto OnlyFans? Isn't it crazy that finance capital creates an authoritative relationship that allows it to assert itself politically?" Money is social power. Money is political. And money controls our labour. Moreover, the government itself, which primarily looks out for the interests of the wealth and capital, seems to be on the side of companies like Mastercard, and has harmed sex workers with laws such as SESTA/FOSTA. SESTA/FOSTA was ostensibly meant to combat sex trafficking but has instead led to sex workers being forced into more dangerous places/situations to make a living. This move only serves to exacerbate that problem by removing a relatively safe space for sex workers to earn a living and stifling their ability to do things like advertise and legitimize their very real labour. If we, as a society, are going to continue to consume this kind of content and avail ourselves of these services, then we should treat sex work as real work, and stop forcing these women and men to labour in the shadows.
In the past, primarily due to the criminalization of prostitution and other forms of sex work, most sex workers were at the mercy of shady pimps and porn companies that didn't pay well and often abused the women and men who made living as sex workers. While not quite the level sex workers owning the means of production and distribution, platforms like Onlyfans help to give sex workers a central place where they can safely sell their content and profit off of their own labour, putting them more in control of that labour and the fruits of it. But after Onlyfans grew into the giant online presence that it's become by catering to sex workers and their clients/consumers, building itself and its capital off of the former's labour, the site is bending to the will of finance capital and suspending all sexually-explicit content and citing the prohibitive financial and labour cost of verifying all content, putting many of the people who made this site into a very difficult financial position. Most seem to be saying the same thing, that the news hit them out of the blue and many aren’t sure what they’re going to do. And this may be true for other similar sites who use payment processors such as Mastercard.
These companies, along with Christian groups and hacks like Nicholas Kristof, have used the very real evils of things like sex trafficking and lack of moderation of large porn sites regarding things like revenge porn, non-consensual sex or release of private pictures and videos, sexually explicit content of underage women and men, etc. to target all sex workers and the platforms they use to produce ethical porn that's legal and consensual and that they themselves control and profit from. While all labour is treated unfairly under capitalism, what has made sex work so exceptionally dangerous and seedy has been the unwillingness of western capitalism to fully recognize people's bodily autonomy and the legitimacy of sex work as real labour. And while it’s certainly a good idea to try and make sure the people producing this kind of content are of legal age and doing so of their own free will, the means by which they are trying to achieve this is directly harming the very people it's supposedly intended to protect.
Besides the generally impact to sex workers in terms of negatively affecting their financial stability and safety, what stands out to me is the role finance capital itself is playing in all of this. As one person put it on Twitter, "Wow, [Mastercard] is basically forcing policies onto OnlyFans? Isn't it crazy that finance capital creates an authoritative relationship that allows it to assert itself politically?" Money is social power. Money is political. And money controls our labour. Moreover, the government itself, which primarily looks out for the interests of the wealth and capital, seems to be on the side of companies like Mastercard, and has harmed sex workers with laws such as SESTA/FOSTA. SESTA/FOSTA was ostensibly meant to combat sex trafficking but has instead led to sex workers being forced into more dangerous places/situations to make a living. This move only serves to exacerbate that problem by removing a relatively safe space for sex workers to earn a living and stifling their ability to do things like advertise and legitimize their very real labour. If we, as a society, are going to continue to consume this kind of content and avail ourselves of these services, then we should treat sex work as real work, and stop forcing these women and men to labour in the shadows.
Saturday, July 17, 2021
progress once again hostage by the profit
This Twitter thread on solar power from MIT perfectly illustrates the contradictions inherent to capitalism that make it unable to effectively and equitably address the socioeconomic needs of people.
In essence, solar power is a problem because the power generated can't be choked off to create artificial scarcity and jack up prices, meaning low cost electricity that companies can't make as much profit off of it.
The argument is literally, solar power is too cheap and efficient and we need to address this before expanding solar to meet climate goal or else it'll make the market unhappy and capital will lose out on massive profits.
From capitalism's POV, the existence of a super cheap and efficient power source is a bad thing, regardless of the current ecological crisis we are facing that was created, or at least exacerbated by, our reliance on fossil fuels.
It should make it obvious that we need a better, more equitable, and more ecologically-friendly system in which the production of goods and services is based on need rather than greed, and prioritizes the health of the planet over shareholders' bottom line.
In essence, solar power is a problem because the power generated can't be choked off to create artificial scarcity and jack up prices, meaning low cost electricity that companies can't make as much profit off of it.
The argument is literally, solar power is too cheap and efficient and we need to address this before expanding solar to meet climate goal or else it'll make the market unhappy and capital will lose out on massive profits.
From capitalism's POV, the existence of a super cheap and efficient power source is a bad thing, regardless of the current ecological crisis we are facing that was created, or at least exacerbated by, our reliance on fossil fuels.
It should make it obvious that we need a better, more equitable, and more ecologically-friendly system in which the production of goods and services is based on need rather than greed, and prioritizes the health of the planet over shareholders' bottom line.
Friday, February 12, 2021
the hyperbolorian
Honestly, I feel like all the people who are upset that Gina Carano was let go from The Mandalorian and equating Disney letting her go with some kind of leftist totalitarian persecution are overreacting to put it lightly and have little to no understanding of actual history or what freedom of speech means.
For one, Gina has not been silenced by the government in any way, shape, or form, which is what the first amendment protects against. Freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment doesn't mean there are no consequences to your speech, or that private companies have to allow any type of speech by their employees whatsoever, only that the government shall not infringe upon your speech within reason, as there are clear legal limitations to this protection. A private company that employs her did not like some of the things she has been saying and sharing publicly on social media, which impacts their image and brand. And said private company has every right to distance themselves from any kind of view or form of public speech they deem to be problematic and harmful to their brand and image. That's their right, and her freedoms don't negate theirs. They have no legal requirement to employ her. And she already has a deal with another media company to create a film of her own. So not only is she free to say whatever she wants, she is still working, and her voice has obviously not been silenced in any way by the government or even by the social media companies she has been using to express her views (which can legally delete unwanted content or ban individuals from using their platforms).
And looking back at history, during the height of the cold war and McCarthyism, anyone even remotely connected to someone who may have communist sympathies or was a member of the Communist Party was blacklisted from Hollywood, media publishers, and government. You were also put under intense government investigation. And under laws such as the Alien Registration Act of 1940, people who were members or supporters of the Communist Party were arrested and jailed for little more than their political ideas and affiliations, some even being deported or prevented from entering the country because of them under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (which was both anti-communist and anti-Jewish in origin). In essence, the people who are talking about the cabal of totalitarian leftists silencing people and stealing their freedoms simply because they are being let go from a particular show over publicly expressed views and media that may negatively reflect on their parent company's image have no idea what they're talking, and the comparisons to the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust is absolutely ridiculous.
Look, if you think being let go by Disney, only to be offered a deal 24 hours later by another media company, is the height of totalitarian persecution and comparable to Nazism, you may need to brush up on history and get a little more historical context to balance out that hyperbole. Just saying.
For one, Gina has not been silenced by the government in any way, shape, or form, which is what the first amendment protects against. Freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment doesn't mean there are no consequences to your speech, or that private companies have to allow any type of speech by their employees whatsoever, only that the government shall not infringe upon your speech within reason, as there are clear legal limitations to this protection. A private company that employs her did not like some of the things she has been saying and sharing publicly on social media, which impacts their image and brand. And said private company has every right to distance themselves from any kind of view or form of public speech they deem to be problematic and harmful to their brand and image. That's their right, and her freedoms don't negate theirs. They have no legal requirement to employ her. And she already has a deal with another media company to create a film of her own. So not only is she free to say whatever she wants, she is still working, and her voice has obviously not been silenced in any way by the government or even by the social media companies she has been using to express her views (which can legally delete unwanted content or ban individuals from using their platforms).
And looking back at history, during the height of the cold war and McCarthyism, anyone even remotely connected to someone who may have communist sympathies or was a member of the Communist Party was blacklisted from Hollywood, media publishers, and government. You were also put under intense government investigation. And under laws such as the Alien Registration Act of 1940, people who were members or supporters of the Communist Party were arrested and jailed for little more than their political ideas and affiliations, some even being deported or prevented from entering the country because of them under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (which was both anti-communist and anti-Jewish in origin). In essence, the people who are talking about the cabal of totalitarian leftists silencing people and stealing their freedoms simply because they are being let go from a particular show over publicly expressed views and media that may negatively reflect on their parent company's image have no idea what they're talking, and the comparisons to the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust is absolutely ridiculous.
Look, if you think being let go by Disney, only to be offered a deal 24 hours later by another media company, is the height of totalitarian persecution and comparable to Nazism, you may need to brush up on history and get a little more historical context to balance out that hyperbole. Just saying.
Friday, November 6, 2020
election 2020, part 3
Just reading this Twitter thread from AOC and I seriously can't get over how freaking awesome she is. I truly believe progressive Democrats like AOC (including Pramila Jayapal, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, etc.) are the future of the party if it's even to have one. Ignore them and their progressive (and winning) ideas and policies at your own risk. The Democratic Party’s rejection of progressive policies and candidates by both leadership and primary voters did more harm than good. I think there's enough evidence from the results of elections around the country that progressive policies and candidates have far wider general appeal than many Democrats realize, from the success of progressive candidates winning seats or reelection and progressive measures such as $15 minimum wage in Florida to the loss of centrist Democrats.
On top of that, I think that Democrats owe a huge debt to black and brown voters and organizers for Biden's win (which looks likely at this point). I also think they also owe the many leftists and progressives like Bernie and AOC who campaigned so hard for Biden despite his unwillingness to adopt progressive policies like Medicare for All. And while I'm not going to hold my breath that the Democratic Party will do right by any of them, I hope they prove me wrong. One way of doing that is by making AOC the next speaker of the House, because her vision and energy is what the Democratic Party needs guiding it.
Also, the Lincoln Project was a grift. I'll never get tired of saying that or shitting on the very idea of it and how many liberals were suckered by it. They raised $67 million, more than they could spend during the election, so they're using it for some media project that'll likely help Republicans and/or try to push Biden right, and a larger percentage of Republicans voted for Trump in 2020 than 2016, so yeah. Back in August, I said on Facebook that, "I honestly don't think the election can be won by courting Republicans and neglecting the younger voters, progressives, latinx and Muslim voters, and the majority of working people and voters who are hurting and support things like universal healthcare." And I think the data from this election has proven that right. You're not winning over these mythical, moral Reoublicans, so let's not go that route again and instead support actual progressives and not pander to the party that gave us this "existential threat" in the first place, ok?
But the most important point in all of this, I think, is that made by Bree Newsome Bass, who wrote on Twitter, "I hope folks recognize the power actually resides with the people, that it’s not about voting folks into office & then crossing your fingers while hoping they’ll do what you need. We have to build organized power in our communities, set our own agendas & mobilize as necessary." I don't think that point can be stressed enough, which is why my politics are predominately socialist in nature, because it gives the people's needs primacy and take the efficacy of their collective power seriously.
On top of that, I think that Democrats owe a huge debt to black and brown voters and organizers for Biden's win (which looks likely at this point). I also think they also owe the many leftists and progressives like Bernie and AOC who campaigned so hard for Biden despite his unwillingness to adopt progressive policies like Medicare for All. And while I'm not going to hold my breath that the Democratic Party will do right by any of them, I hope they prove me wrong. One way of doing that is by making AOC the next speaker of the House, because her vision and energy is what the Democratic Party needs guiding it.
Also, the Lincoln Project was a grift. I'll never get tired of saying that or shitting on the very idea of it and how many liberals were suckered by it. They raised $67 million, more than they could spend during the election, so they're using it for some media project that'll likely help Republicans and/or try to push Biden right, and a larger percentage of Republicans voted for Trump in 2020 than 2016, so yeah. Back in August, I said on Facebook that, "I honestly don't think the election can be won by courting Republicans and neglecting the younger voters, progressives, latinx and Muslim voters, and the majority of working people and voters who are hurting and support things like universal healthcare." And I think the data from this election has proven that right. You're not winning over these mythical, moral Reoublicans, so let's not go that route again and instead support actual progressives and not pander to the party that gave us this "existential threat" in the first place, ok?
But the most important point in all of this, I think, is that made by Bree Newsome Bass, who wrote on Twitter, "I hope folks recognize the power actually resides with the people, that it’s not about voting folks into office & then crossing your fingers while hoping they’ll do what you need. We have to build organized power in our communities, set our own agendas & mobilize as necessary." I don't think that point can be stressed enough, which is why my politics are predominately socialist in nature, because it gives the people's needs primacy and take the efficacy of their collective power seriously.
Thursday, November 5, 2020
election 2020, part 2
On Twitter, Bree Newsome Bass wrote:
I think this is an important point that socialists need make to white people and workers. While I'm not a class reductionist, I do think the case must be made that socializing the economy and moving away from capitalism will benefit all workers by not restricting opportunities and forcing greater competition with others, but rather allowing us to eliminate bullshit jobs, reducing working hours and shorting the work week, and provide a good life for everyone. Because under the current system, gains made for BIPOC and women economically and politically will negatively impact white workers, and I think that fear is one of the reasons they vote Republican and for people like Trump. They want to protect their jobs and wages from the threat they see in immigrant labourers, equal opportunity and pay for BIPOC, women, etc.
This should only be a short-term strategy, though, for immediate electoral victories and the implementation of socialist economic policies because the problem of things like racism, sexism, etc. will still be present. Things like racism still needs to be acknowledged and uprooted, and BIPOC still need equitable economic and political power. But because capitalism depends so much upon production for profit and competition among workers, which benefits capital and gives rise to a great deal of inequality, workers see each other as competitors and enemies, battling for the two slices of pie left for them after capital takes the other eight.
In essence, I see the argument for and push to socialize the economy as just a part of the hard but necessary struggle to end white supremacy. Such economic policies can potentially act as a tool that may help lessen the material fears and economic dynamics that motivate many white people to support systems of white supremacy and racial inequality, which then could potentially promote class solidarity and help unify workers against capital rather than each other.
While this may be idealistic, I think it's worth a shot because white people make up about 70% of the population and voted for Trump in record numbers, and even more POC voted for Trump this time around that last, so I think Democrats need to start trying something different by taking a page from socialist playbooks. Obviously, moderating their platform and pandering to conservative Republicans was a failed strategy. I say this because more Republicans voted for Trump this election than last, and Democrats had pretty disappointing down-ballot results. And one of the many reasons I think this could help put a wedge between white America and white supremacy as embodied by the Republican Party electorally is the success of a $15 minimum wage in conservative Florida (which also voted to restore voting right to felons in 2018).
More liberal areas like Seattle have passed $15 minimum measures, and the fact that a conservative state like Florida can as well, combined with the popularity of universal programs like universal healthcare and education, offer a door for the left and the Democratic Party if it were to adopt even more left-leaning, working-class friendly policies to larger electoral victories. And that could possibly set the stage for even more expansive socialist policies and programs that I believe would undercut much of the fear that keeps white America up at night. And I think this strategy would be much better and more successful than trying to match a more socially-liberal equivalent to what the Republicans offer, because you're not going to beat them at their own game. How many elections do they have to win or almost win for people to see that?
To combat the power of racism and white supremacy, you have to not only change people’s minds but the material conditions and institutions that reproduce these racist biases, barriers, and outcomes. You have to physically dismantle the socio-economic supports for things like racism and white supremacy as well as the internalized beliefs and fears that express themselves electorally.
"Please stop saying working class white people “vote against their interests” when they side w/ racism. That perspective refuses to acknowledge material benefits these folks obtain by preserving a white supremacist system. They don't want racial equality or economic competition.
I think this is an important point that socialists need make to white people and workers. While I'm not a class reductionist, I do think the case must be made that socializing the economy and moving away from capitalism will benefit all workers by not restricting opportunities and forcing greater competition with others, but rather allowing us to eliminate bullshit jobs, reducing working hours and shorting the work week, and provide a good life for everyone. Because under the current system, gains made for BIPOC and women economically and politically will negatively impact white workers, and I think that fear is one of the reasons they vote Republican and for people like Trump. They want to protect their jobs and wages from the threat they see in immigrant labourers, equal opportunity and pay for BIPOC, women, etc.
This should only be a short-term strategy, though, for immediate electoral victories and the implementation of socialist economic policies because the problem of things like racism, sexism, etc. will still be present. Things like racism still needs to be acknowledged and uprooted, and BIPOC still need equitable economic and political power. But because capitalism depends so much upon production for profit and competition among workers, which benefits capital and gives rise to a great deal of inequality, workers see each other as competitors and enemies, battling for the two slices of pie left for them after capital takes the other eight.
In essence, I see the argument for and push to socialize the economy as just a part of the hard but necessary struggle to end white supremacy. Such economic policies can potentially act as a tool that may help lessen the material fears and economic dynamics that motivate many white people to support systems of white supremacy and racial inequality, which then could potentially promote class solidarity and help unify workers against capital rather than each other.
While this may be idealistic, I think it's worth a shot because white people make up about 70% of the population and voted for Trump in record numbers, and even more POC voted for Trump this time around that last, so I think Democrats need to start trying something different by taking a page from socialist playbooks. Obviously, moderating their platform and pandering to conservative Republicans was a failed strategy. I say this because more Republicans voted for Trump this election than last, and Democrats had pretty disappointing down-ballot results. And one of the many reasons I think this could help put a wedge between white America and white supremacy as embodied by the Republican Party electorally is the success of a $15 minimum wage in conservative Florida (which also voted to restore voting right to felons in 2018).
More liberal areas like Seattle have passed $15 minimum measures, and the fact that a conservative state like Florida can as well, combined with the popularity of universal programs like universal healthcare and education, offer a door for the left and the Democratic Party if it were to adopt even more left-leaning, working-class friendly policies to larger electoral victories. And that could possibly set the stage for even more expansive socialist policies and programs that I believe would undercut much of the fear that keeps white America up at night. And I think this strategy would be much better and more successful than trying to match a more socially-liberal equivalent to what the Republicans offer, because you're not going to beat them at their own game. How many elections do they have to win or almost win for people to see that?
To combat the power of racism and white supremacy, you have to not only change people’s minds but the material conditions and institutions that reproduce these racist biases, barriers, and outcomes. You have to physically dismantle the socio-economic supports for things like racism and white supremacy as well as the internalized beliefs and fears that express themselves electorally.
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