#abuse deniers

[furiousgoldfish]

Actually all abuser's justifications for abusive don't hold up. If a child is being loud, annoying, selfish, rude or disruptive, how is abuse going to help? How is violence, yelling, unfair and disproportionate punishments going to rectify this or resolve the issue? Obviously the solution is to be adults about it and understand that this is a child, they are by nature disruptive, loud, selfihs, annoying and rude, that is literally any child because nature makes them like that! The abusers have been the same as children, they have no right to expect a child to be obedient little servant there to satisfy everyone's needs and never be annoying once, what the actual hell? No natural child is like that!

They'll also act like the child hurt them first, hit them first, provoked them, asked for it, so they 'deserved it', um what the damn hell are you talking about? Are you an adult or a helpless pile of mushed crap who gets provoked by a kid being a kid? Do you not know how to deal with an aggressive kid without bringing on trauma and violence? If you have actual beef with a freaking child as an adult, you are 100% in the wrong, every single time, what do you mean you didn't learn to control your violent impulses after the age of 15. Even children are more capable of handling a situation than you are, you stupid justifier of abuse, your arguments rely on everyone believing that you are a fucking incapable idiot. Telling how you never react the same from provocations from your friends or your boss, somehow in those situations you can keep you calm? Act maturely? Not scream or beat the shit out of those provocateurs? It's almost like you have perfect control but want to abuse children anyway.

Then there's also 'I had a hard childhood too', and you went out of your way to create more hard childhoods for other people? Oh not just other people, for children, your children, who are your own flesh and blood, who you took responsibility to protect and care for, to give them a good life and safe future? These are the people you decided should have a hard childhood because you had one? If a guy gets hit by a bus, can he now legally hit you with a bus and it's ok bc it happened to him first? Can every person in the world who had it tough now take it on you, and it's ok because they are the victims and you should just have understanding that it's okay they're now doing it to you? No you don't like that? Then shut your filthy mouth about your childhood, if you're bringing it up to justify your abuse instead of trying to dismantle it to make SURE you never do it to anyone else, I don't wanna fucking hear about it. Do not bring up your own abuse as a defense for when you abused someone else! It's not relevant! Bring it up in therapy! When you're not actively victimizing someone and asking for compassion and support from a person you took these same things away from!

Abuse helps nobody. It accomplishes nothing good for anyone. Desire to abuse is never justified. You can do every single thing in your life without abusing anyone. Do not fucking act otherwise. Nothing that ever happened to you gave you the right to hurt someone who couldn't fight back.

#child abuse #abuse excuses #abuse justifications #dismantling abuse #long term abuse #abuse deniers #abusers

[fatheroffdensen]

my brain is in a state of 'i could write poetry about anything' rn and the way i could write a fucking novel's worth of psychoanalytic prose about dethklok is insane. like the character depth itself lives in my brain rent free. fucking brendon gave me brain rot so bad. oh my GOD dethklok are just literally perfect caricatures of toxic masculine expressions of severe complex ptsd and i will never get over that. like brendon GETS IT. he either is a trauma survivor and/or neurodivergent himself or actually has an unfathomable empathy + understanding that he managed to inject into the most unexpected artform (funny silly gory adult cartoons- who thought it would literally be about the power of friendship in the end!??!). i wanna pick his brain i could talk to him for hours i bet

#i wish i could be brendons therapist i'm gonna be so for real #the more i think about it the more affection/connection i feel for him in the way he writes characters with obvious but unacknowledged ptsd #(not to trauma dump but im a parental abuse/medical neglect/multiple CSA/COSCA/adult SA survior who lives surrounded by (cont) #toxic masculine trauma deniers who are also metal fans. so i fucking get it sm. MTL feels like a reflection of my social life sometimes) #i have a doc with a 'psychiatric analysis' spoof of dethklok. not kidding i diagnosed them all #i've got such hardcore brainrot today. brendon if you see this dm me i see through ur writing hmu /s

[beeben]

I read these like anti Christianity whatever or even like someone whos not anti Christian just explaining something cus everyone always assumes all religion follows the same rules as Christianity but in different words which i get its annoying but some of u act like the religion itself makes u evil or dumb or something its just kinda weird. Like i understand having religious trauma but i doubt every single person who bitches about us has religious trauma from Christianity specially and nothing else... Like in any religion theres overzealous people and any religion has people who misinterpreted the teachings but its so normal for yall to act like Christians are too stupid to use the Internet and read the mean shit you say

#like saying all of us are science deniers or abuse women or are ok with racism #its just not true.

[bowerywilliam]

seeing taylor "i came out with an entire safety protocol to be able to record my album and shoot my music video to ensure the safety of everyone involved during the height of the pandemic that later was replicated by big production because of how thorough it was" swift working with lana "covid isn't a big deal, masks are a form of government control, vaccines are unsafe" del rey is disappointing, to say the least :/

#and like as someone who will live with the after effects of covid for the rest of my life this one hits a bit too personally #because i was always so proud and happy of how seriously taylor took covid precautions #and her working with a pro-cop‚ abuse apologist‚ covid denier just hits hard #i keep trying to look past Taylor's indiscretions but it becomes harder and harder the more she chooses to work with shitty people

[gonegrove]

The pro of getting back into the got eu: the moralizing folks that we see so much in this fandom are the minority bc of you think you can moralize ANYTHING in this franchise to “win” at fandom you’re a fucking idiot

The con of getting back into the got eu: unholy amount of dudebros with so little concept of actual humanity or critical thinking that they think the teen girl abuse victim is Actually Evil

#train.txt #have I traded in 1 form of abuse denier for another? quite possibly yes. #at least this one I expected LOL #men????? care about or comprehend the quiet horrors that women are subjected to under patriarchy? lol ofc not

[gallakev]

Slimane Hamas nazi

#slimane #nazi #hisbollah #hamas #wehrmacht #ss #sa #schutzstaffel #sturmabteilung #terrorist #holocaust denier #narcissistic #abusive #abuser #vile #bully #manipulative #esc 2024 #france #french

[dots3a]

My ex got married this weekend and since he is upper middle class and so is his new wife, they don't believe covid is real or dangerous and they take no precautions in spite of my ex being high risk because of asthma and chronic bronchitis.

The kids are all sick.

Hoping they get through this quickly. Hoping it's not covid. Hoping this doesn't kill me.

Being chronically ill and not being able to protect myself and also have my children in my life is.. scary and bad, actually.

They both admitted to neglecting the kids and exposing them to homemade pornography in court. We really shouldn't be in this situation.

#co parenting #sahms lose their children regularly in divorce court for “not having a job” #divorce from an abuser #covid deniers #covid is still a thing #disabled people exist #not wearing a mask is eugenics #eugenics

[monarch-apostate]

Trigger Warning, content on this blog may be very triggering

~

Apostate- A freed or runaway slave, also known as a person who leaves a religious movement.

~

This account is effectively my own personal diary for streams of consciousness as I deprogram, explore my system and myself, and find who I am again. I am no expert everything shared on this account is simply our own point of view.

~

Leaving a "religious" sector/cult (I've gone into detail about my traumas and abuse in other posts that I won't detail here), in my early days of leaving I was angry and disheartened. Where was god? Where was he during my abuse? I was redirected into Atheism, under this philosophy I found much comfort in denying many of abusers claims. As I grow older now I find more connection to Earth. I have once again regained my ability to practice safe and beautiful non destructive Magic to connect to Earth and all of its wonders. As for my connections to any higher powers due to trauma I'm still working on that. Infact we've put a pause on magic, earth and light work for now as we re-center and re-ground ourselves.

I support all of us to use what our tools that are inside of ourselves to connect and heal to our higher powers of our own understandings and to not let abusive cults tell us what God is and isn't.

~

About us; We are a survivor of Highly Advanced Governmental, Military, Intelligence, FreeMason, Spiritual and Religious Trauma Based Mind Control. We were born into MK Ultra/Project Monarch in a bloodline family and experienced very advanced Programming with many purposes for our life within the structure of the cult. A few of those roles were as a lead programmer in the area of the cult we were in, and a very high leadership position to specify a few. In 2019 after many years of seeking guidance and clarity from a troublesome life full of trauma and abuse, and wanting to heal we discovered that we had Highly Complex Polyfragmented Dissociative Identity Disorder (Formerly Multiple Personality Disorder), that we had grown up in an abusive cult that practiced mind control and ritual abuse. Ever since waking up and choosing to heal we have faced many setbacks, beautiful healing, horrible trauma and even more. This account is where we are choosing to document our life as it is the one place we can share this side of ourselves. As we start another chapter of our lives, we want to share the path we walk on with those we meet on here.

This page is simply our stream of consciousness as we attempt to recover from our various traumas and create a safe space for our system, to talk about our mind control programming trauma as well as other things.

-Dani, Caleb, Scarlet & co.

~

Disclaimer, we claim no expertise in any subjects we discuss we are only sharing our points of view and nothing on this blog should be taken as advice.

#monarch mind control #mk ultra #system stuff #did system #actually plural #actually did #sra deniers dni #survivor #cult survivor #healing #apostate #cult #anti semites dni #racists dni #terfs transphobes dni #homophobes dni #minors dni #ramcoa #ritual abuse #mc #mind control #organized abuse #ramcoa system #introduction #pinned #Dani #Caleb #Scarlet #monarch programming

[syntheticpaperd0ll]

can we talk about parents denying they gave you trauma for a moment.

"i didn't hit you or yell at you when you were a kid!" yes you did i have very clear memories of that and almost only that over anything that happened in preschool.

"i spent plenty of time with you!" yeah only when i physically came into your office where you spent almost all of your time and stood there until you got annoyed with me for asking about what game you were playing

"stop putting words in my mouth!" if im putting words in your mouth tell me why i vividly remember you telling me not to be dramatic when i said i would kill myself

"we've been over this, i would never hit you!" i remember it like yesterday and yet it was two years ago. it didn't make the situation better. it made me terrified. explain that, mister i didn't give you trauma

#trauma #cw trauma #cw abuse mention #cw neglect mention #cw sui mention #mental health #award for best trauma denier ive ever met goes to my dad because i havent met any others #i hope thats enough cws but my bad if its not

[thisismenow3]

Climate change: do we have to debate to do something about it?

I think the one thing that would make this video perfect is this fact; most adult Americans, way more than half, believe in climate change and don’t fall into any of the categories Hank listed. When you realize that, you realize the opportunity in this moment in history; unlike last decades, we don’t really need to waste much effort debating. We already have the majority. What we need to do is make our government more democratic. Once it actually is reformed enough to respond to the majority, we can actually robustly push through more policies. So for once we don’t have to split effort between very important priorities. Make our government more of a democracy (undo the backsliding of gerrymanders, unlawful high circuit and Supreme Court, electoral college, etc) and we can actually move at a speed that matches the problem. Still a tall order. But it’s the difference between catching up on a semester of studying in two weeks vs two nights when you realize this. Run for local office. Join the dem party and change it from the inside like right wingers did republicans from the 70s onward

#The debate has been over #The debate was never actually adebate #We can force companies to change when they his democracy of ours becomes actually representstive #Cause most adults believe in the truth of climate change and support actions of to mitigate and stop it #Therefore why waste energy on debating? #As Hank says in the video #The people who say they don’t believe it don’t actually mean they don’t believe it #They’re tribally signaling or don’t care cause of whatever psyche blinders they have on #Or they “believe” it’s not real in the same way many people in bad relationships “don’t believe” they’re in abusive relationships #Which is to say the knowledge they are wrong is on the porch of their conscious mind banging on the windows and they’re ignoring it #So fuck climate deniers #We move on without them #And luckily we can do that while trying to save democracy #Cause the solutions are incredibly overlapping in avenue diagram #Youtube

[jonasgoonface]

Earthday is fight day

If your "green" project relies on the same practices of land theft, resource extraction, and labor abuse that brought us to this point - then the grifters supporting it are just another variety of climate change deniers. Squat the trees while we still got trees. Defend what you love.

#earthday #tesla #green tech #green washing #industry #ecomodernism #climate change #diversity of tactics #fire #eco cars

[boreal-sea]

absolutely wild to me that people are genuinely saying “if Jews didn’t want antisemitism they shouldn’t have been Bad Jews” as if Israel represents all Jewish people or moreso that bigotry is ever justified. if someone can’t call out what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians without being antisemitic they’re just a bigot. plenty of people have been able to do so, antisemitism is not inevitable. all people like that seem to do is harm everyone involved, Jewish people and Palestinian people. you’re not helping any kind of liberation with that.

People really cannot handle separating the government of Israel from Jews in general. People also had a hard time disconnecting Al Qaeda and ISIS from Islam, so I mean, I'm not surprised they can't do it here, either.

I'm on the side of the citizens. ALL of them. Everyone living in this region, regardless of nationality or religion. I am on their side. I want the government of Israel AND Hamas to lay down arms. But after that, to be honest, a huge weight does lay on the government of Israel to begin undoing decades of harm it has caused.

Netanyahu and his administration are absolutely committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. They have spent years abusing Palestinians. They've just ordered all people in north Gaza to "evacuate" to south Gaza within 24 hours. That's over 1 million people. That's impossible. They've cut off power and water and travel. It's inhumane. It's a war crime. Hands-down.

Hamas, on the other side, is just as genocidal - they just don't have as much power to enact it. They are holocaust deniers, they are openly antisemitic, they want all Jews in Israel gone or dead. Just because they claim they're "fighting for Palestinians" doesn't make them morally right. They are rapists, murderers, and kidnappers. They enforce Sharia law. They have also committed war crimes by attacking civilians.

#i/p #israel #palestine

[drdemonprince]

Kallitsounaki and Williams found that transgender participants did in fact report alexithymia symptoms at an elevated rate, compared to their cisgender peers. This effect also held strong when eliminating all Autistic participants from analyses, which indicates that even non-Autistic transgender people are worse at naming and recognizing their feelings than non-Autistic cisgender people are. The study’s authors concluded from these findings that non-Autistic transgender people appear to exhibit “subclinical” Autistic traits. “Future studies mighty usefully examine whether alexithymia is a potential “marker” of autistic traits in transgender people who do not meet full criteria for autism,” they write. To put it another way, they believe the alexithymia that non-Autistic trans people report is still caused by (mild) Autism. But this conclusion carries with it a faulty and as-yet untested assumption: that alexithymia must be caused by Autism directly, when in reality it could just be a natural consequence of living in a marginalized and othered body.  Just because a transgender person struggles to name and recognize their emotions doesn’t necessarily mean they’re Autistic. It could very well be the case that both Autistic people and transgender people struggle to understand our feelings, because we have experienced a lifetime of questioning and invalidation. And if we look to the broader research literature on alexithymia, we see even more evidence that this might be the case. … It’s not just Autistic people who have been found by researchers to experience alexithymia. Sufferers of trichotillomania, or compulsive hair-pulling, have repeatedly been found to be alexithymic too. Some research also links alexithymia with early exposures to trauma and abuse. People who do not know they are pregnant (also known in the literature as pregnancy-deniers) tend to be alexithymic, for instance. They also tend to be victims of childhood sexual assault. These two things are not unrelated. We know that when vulnerable people (particularly children) are sexually assaulted, their minds tend to dissociate from that upsetting reality. Their consciousness “floats away” to a point elsewhere in the room, or they pretend the abuse isn’t happening to them or that the world around them is not real. Additional research has also found that alexithymia is associated with early childhood abuse, especially emotional and physical neglect. It makes sense that a mind that’s well practiced in the art of detachment might stop checking on its internal states entirely. A body that has often been the site of your abuse is one you can’t dwell in comfortably. If you can’t count on your caregiver to provide you with regular nourishment, there’s little reason to make note of your own feelings of hunger. And if your cries for help or comfort are never heard with sympathy, you may quickly learn not to even recognize sadness within yourself at all. These findings also dovetail with an observation that Kallitsounaki and Williams make in their paper, but don’t take much time to dwell on: they found that the cisgender men in their sample were significantly more alexithymic than cisgender women. This finding also suggests that there are environmental and social factors that contribute to a person’s awareness of their own emotions — and populations that are discouraged from sharing how they feel are far worse at understanding their feelings as a result.

Women aren’t innately more attuned to emotions than men are. They’re simply expected to be more emotionally aware, and given more tools to make emotional recognition and expression possible. Men, on the flip side, are denied the freedom to be openly emotional, and also relieved of the responsibility to look after their own or others’ feelings. This results in them understanding emotions a whole lot less. If we can’t assume that the alexithymia of men is innate, then we shouldn’t assume it’s innate in Autistics or transgender people either. For just as men are discouraged from openly crying, asking for help, or showing other signs of supposed “weakness,” both transgender people and Autistics are actively discouraged from expressing discomfort or seeking emotional aid for ourselves.

read the rest of the article for free here.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

Tonight (September 14), I'm hosting the EFF Awards in San Francisco. On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy.

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. 40 years of declining worker power shattered the American Dream (TM), producing multiple generations whose children fared worse than their parents, cratering faith in institutions and hope for a better future.

The American neoliberal malaise – celebrated in by "centrists" who insisted that everything was fine and nothing could be changed – didn't just lead to a sense of helplessness, but also hopelessness. Denialism and nihilism are Siamese twins, and the YOLO approach to the climate emergency, covid mitigation, the housing crisis and other pressing issues can't be disentangled from the Thatcherite maxim that "There is NoA lternative." If there's no alternative, then we're doomed. Dig a hole, climb inside, pull the dirt down on top of yourself.

But anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. For decades, leftists have taken a back seat to liberals in the progressive coalition, allowing "unionize!" to be drowned out by "learn to code!" The liberal-led coalition ceded the mantle of radical change to fake populist demagogues on the right.

This opened a space for a mirror-world politics that insisted that "conservatives" were the true defenders of women (because they were transphobes), of bodily autonomy (because they were vaccine deniers), of the environment (because they opposed wind-farms) and of workers (because they opposed immigration):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. A new coalition dedicated to fighting corporate power has emerged, tackling capitalism's monopoly power, and the corruption and abuse of workers it enables. That coalition is global, it's growing, and it's kicking ass.

Case in point: California just passed a law that will give every fast-food worker in the state a 30% raise. This law represents a profound improvement to the lives of the state's poorest workers – workers who spend long hours feeding their neighbors, but often can't afford to feed themselves at the end of a shift.

But just as remarkable as the substance of this new law is the path it took – a path that runs through a new sensibility, a new vibe, that is more powerful than mere political or legal procedure. The story is masterfully told in The American Prospect by veteran labor writer Harold Meyerson:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-13-half-million-california-workers-get-raise/

The story starts with Governor Newsom signing a bill to create a new statewide labor-business board to mediate between workers and bosses, with the goal of elevating the working conditions of the state's large, minimum-wage workforce. The passage of this law triggered howls of outrage from the state's fast-food industry, who pledged to spend $200m to put forward a ballot initiative to permanently kill the labor-business board.

This is a familiar story. In 2019, California's state legislature passed AB-5, a bill designed to end the gig-work fiction that people whose boss is an algorithm are actually "independent businesses," rather than employees. AB5 wasn't perfect – it swept up all kinds of genuine freelancers, like writers who contributed articles to many publications – but the response wasn't aimed at fixing the bad parts. It was designed to destroy the good parts.

After AB-5, Uber and Lyft poured more than $200m into Prop 22, a ballot initiative designed to permanently bar the California legislature from passing any law to protect "gig workers." Prop 22's corporate backers flooded the state with disinformation, and procured a victory in 2020. The aftermath was swift and vicious, with Prop 22 used as cover in mass-firings of unionized workers across the state's workforce:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/manorialism-feudalism-cycle/#prop22

Workers and the politicians who defend them were supposed to be crushed by Prop 22. Its message was "there is no alternative." "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." "Resistance is futile." Prop 22 was worth spending $200m on because it wouldn't just win this fight – it would win all fights, forever.

But that's not what happened. When the fast-food barons announced that they were going to pump another $200m into a state ballot initiative to kill fair wages for food service workers, they got a hell of a surprise. SEIU – a union that has long struggled to organize fast-food workers – collaborated with progressive legislators to introduce a pair of new, even further-reaching bills.

One bill would have made the corporate overseers of franchise businesses jointly liable for lawbreaking by franchisees – so if a McDonald's restaurant owner stole their employees' wages, McDonalds corporate would also be on the hook for the offense. The second bill would restore funding and power to the state Industrial Welfare Commission, which once routinely intervened to set wages and working standards in many state industries:

https://www.gtlaw-laborandemployment.com/2023/08/the-california-iwc-whats-old-is-new-again/

Fast-food bosses fucked around, and boy did they find out. Funding for the IWC passed the state budget, and the franchisee joint liability is set to pass the legislature this week. The fast-food bosses cried uncle and begged Newsom's office for a deal. In exchange for defunding the IWC and canceling the vote on the liability bill, the industry has agreed to an hourly wage increase for the state's 550,000 fast-food workers, from $15.50 to $20, taking effect in April.

The deal also includes annual raises of either 3.5% or the real rise in cost of living. It keeps the labor-management council that the original bill created (the referendum on killing that council has been cancelled). The council will include two franchisees, two fast food corporate reps, two union reps, two front-line fast-food workers and a member of the public. It will have the power to direct the state Department of Labor to directly regulate working conditions in fast-food restaurants, from health and safety to workplace violence.

It's been nearly a century since business/government/labor boards like this were commonplace. The revival is a step on the way to bringing back the practice of sectoral bargaining, where workers set contracts for all employers in an industry. Sectoral bargaining was largely abolished through the dismantling of the New Deal, though elements of it remain. Entertainment industry unions are called "guilds" because they bargain with all the employers in their sector – which is why all of the Hollywood studios are being struck by SAG-AFTRA and the WGA.

So what changed between 2020 – when rideshare bosses destroyed democratic protections for workers by flooding the zone with disinformation to pass Prop 22 – and 2023, when the fast food bosses folded like a cheap suit? It wasn't changes to the laws governing ballot initiatives, nor was it a lack of ready capital for demolishing worker rights. Fast food executives weren't visited by three ghosts in the night who convinced them to care for their workers. Their hearts didn't grow by three sizes.

What changed was the vibe. The Hot Labor Summer was a rager, and it's not showing any signs of slowing. Obviously that's true in California, where nurses and hotel workers are also striking, and where strikebreaking companies like Instawork ("Uber for #scabs") attract swift regulatory sanction, rather than demoralized capitulation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

The hot labor summer wasn't a season – it was a turning point. Everyone's forming unions. Think of Equity Strip NoHo, the first strippers' union in a generation, which won recognition from their scumbag bosses at North Hollywood's Star Garden Club, who used every dirty trick to kill workplace democracy.

The story of the Equity Strippers is amazing. Two organizers, Charlie and Lilith, appeared on Adam Conover's Factually podcast to describe the incredible creativity and solidarity they used to win recognition, and the continuing struggle to get a contract out of their bosses, who are still fucking around and assuming they will not find out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fgXihmHIZk

Like the fast-food bosses, the Star Garden's owners are in for a surprise. One of the most powerful elements of the Equity Strippers' story is the solidarity of their customers. Star Garden's owners assumed that their clientele were indiscriminate, horny assholes who didn't care about the wellbeing of the workers they patronized, and would therefore cross a picket-line because parts is parts.

Instead, the bar's clientele sided with the workers. People everywhere are siding with workers. A decade ago, when video game actors voted on a strike, the tech workers who coded the games were incredibly hostile to them. "Why should you get residuals for your contribution to this game when we don't?"

But SAG-AFTRA members who provide voice acting for games just overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike, and this time the story is very different. This time, tech workers are ride-or-die for their comrades in the sound booths:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-09-13/video-game-voice-actor-sag-strike-interactive-agreement-actors-strike

What explains the change in tech workers' animal sentiments? Well, on the one hand, labor rights are in the air. The decades of cartoonish, lazy dismissals of labor struggles have ended. And on the other hand, tech workers have been proletarianized, with 260,000 layoffs in the sector, including 12,000 layoffs at Google that came immediately after a stock buyback that would have paid those 12,000 salaries for the next 27 years:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers-ad0a6b09f7e6

Larry Lessig once laid out a theory of change that holds that our society is governed by four forces: law (what's legal), norms (what's socially acceptable), markets (what's profitable) and code (what's technologically possible):

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/CodeAndRegulation/about.html

These four forces interact. When queer relationships were normalized, it made it easier to legalize them, too – and then the businesses that marriage equality became both a force for more normalization and legal defense.

When Lessig formulated this argument, much of the focus was on technology – how file-sharing changed norms, which changed law. But as the decades passed, I've come to appreciate what the argument says about norms, the conversations we have with one another.

Neoliberalism wants you to think that you're an individual, not a member of a polity. Neoliberalism wants you to bargain with your boss as a "free agent," not a union member. It wants you to address the climate emergency by recycling more carefully – not by demanding laws banning single-use plastics. It wants you to fight monopolies by shopping harder – not by busting trusts.

But that's not what we're doing – not anymore. We're forming unions. We're demanding a Green New Deal. And we're busting some trusts. The DoJ Antitrust Division case against Google is the (first) trial of the century, reviving the ancient and noble practice of fighting monopolies with courts, not empty platitudes.

The trial is incredible, and Yosef Weitzman's reporting on Big Tech On Trial is required reading. I'm following it closely (thankfully, there's a fulltext RSS feed):

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/what-makes-google-great

The neoliberal project of instilling learned helplessness about corporate power has hit the wall, and it's wrecked. The same norms that made us furious enough to put Google on trial are the norms that made us angry – not cynical – about Clarence Thomas's bribery scandals:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

And they're the same norms that made us support our striking comrades, from hotel housekeepers to Hollywood actors, from strippers to Starbucks baristas:

https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/09/13/Starbucks-Workers-Back-At-Strike/

Yes, Starbucks baristas. The Starbucks unions that won hard-fought recognition drives are now fighting the next phase of corporate fuckery: Starbucks corporate's refusal to bargain for a contract. Starbucks is betting that if they just stall long enough, the workers who support the union will move on and they'll be able to go back to abusing their workers without worrying about a union.

They're fucking around, and they're finding out. Starbucks workers at two shops in British Columbia – Clayton Crossing in Surrey and Valley Centre in Langley – have authorized strikes with a 91% majority:

https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/09/13/Starbucks-Workers-Back-At-Strike/

Where did the guts to do this come from? Not from labor law, which remains disgustingly hostile to workers (though that's changing, as we'll see below). It came from norms. It came from getting pissed off and talking about it. Shouting about it. Arguing about it.

Laws, markets and code matter, but they're nothing without norms. That's why Uber and Lyft were willing to spend $200m to fight fair labor practices. They didn't just want to keep their costs low – they wanted to snuff out the vibe, the idea that workers deserve a fair deal.

They failed. The idea didn't die. It thrived. It merged with the idea that corporations and the wealthy corrupt our society. It was joined by the idea that monopolies harm us all. They're losing. We're winning.

The BC Starbucks workers secured 91% majorities in their strike votes. This is what worker power looks like. As Jane McAlevey writes in her Collective Bargain, these supermajorities – ultramajorities – are how we win.

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-collective-bargain-a48925f944fe

The neoliberal wing of the Democratic party hires high-priced consultants who advise them to seek 50.1% margins of victory – and then insist that nothing can be done because we live in the Manchin-Synematic Universe, where razor-thin majorities mean that there is no alternative. Labor organizers fight for 91% majorities – in the face of bosses' gerrymandering, disinformation and voter suppression – and get shit done.

Shifting the norms – having the conversations – is the tactic, but getting shit done is the goal. The Biden administration – a decidedly mixed bag – has some incredible, technically skilled, principled fighters who know how to get shit done. Take Lina Khan, who revived the long-dormant Section 5 of the Federal Trade Act, which gives her broad powers to ban "unfair and deceptive" practices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Khan's wielding this broad power in all kinds of exciting ways. For example, she's seeking a ban on noncompetes, a form of bondage that shackles workers to shitty bosses by making it illegal to work for anyone else in the same industry:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Noncompete apologists argue that these merely protect employers' investment in training and willingness to share sensitive trade secrets with employees. But the majority of noncompetes are applied to fast food workers – yes, the same workers who just won a 30%, across-the-board raise – in order to prevent Burger King cashiers from seeking $0.25/hour more at a local Wendy's.

Meanwhile, the most trade-secret intensive, high-training industry in the world – tech – has no noncompetes. That's not because tech bosses are good eggs who want to do right by their employees – it's because noncompetes are banned in California, where tech is headquartered.

But in other states, where noncompetes are still allowed, bosses have figured out how to use them as a slippery slope to a form of bondage that beggars the imagination. I'm speaking of the Training Repayment Agreement Provision (AKA, the TRAP), a contractual term that forces workers who quit or get fired to pay their ex-bosses tens of thousands of dollars, supposedly to recoup the cost of training them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Now, TRAPs aren't just evil, they're also bullshit. Bosses show pet-groomers or cannabis budtenders a few videos, throw them a three-ring binder, and declare that they've received a five-figure education that they must repay if they part ways with their employers. This gives bosses broad latitude to abuse their workers and even order them to break the law, on penalty of massive fines for quitting.

If this sounds like an Unfair Labor Practice to you, you're not alone. NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo agrees with you. She's another one of those Biden appointees with a principled commitment to making life better for American workers, and the technical chops to turn that principle into muscular action.

In a case against Juvly Aesthetics – an Ohio-based chain of "alternative medicine" and "aesthetic services" – Abruzzo argues that noncompetes and TRAPs are Unfair Labor Practices that violate the National Labor Relations Act and cannot be enforced:

https://www.nlrb.gov/case/09-CA-300239

Two ex-Juvly employees have been hit with $50-60k "repayment" bills for quitting – one after refusing to violate Ohio law by performing "microneedling," another for quitting after having their wages stolen and then refusing to sign an "exit agreement":

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-14-nlrb-complaint-calls-noncompete-agreement-unfair-labor-practice/

If the NLRB wins, the noncompete and TRAP clauses in the workers' contracts will be voided, and the workers will get fees, missed wages, and other penalties. More to the point, the case will set the precedent that noncompetes are generally unenforceable nationwide, delivering labor protection to every worker in every sector in America.

Abruzzo has been killing it lately: just a couple weeks ago, she set a precedent that any boss that breaks labor law during a union drive automatically loses, with instant recognition for the union as a penalty (rather than a small fine, as was customary):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Abruzzo is amazing – as are her colleagues at the NLRB, FTC, DOJ, and other agencies. But the law they're making is downstream of the norms we set. From the California lawmakers who responded to fast food industry threats by introducing more regulations to the strip-bar patrons who refused to cross the picket-line to the legions of fans dragging Drew Barrymore for scabbing, the public mood is providing the political will for real action:

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2023/09/drew-barrymores-newest-role-scab/

The issues of corruption, worker rights and market concentration can't – and shouldn't – be teased apart. They're three facets of the same fight – the fight against oligarchy. Rarely do those issues come together more clearly than in the delicious petard-hoisting of Dave Clark, formerly the archvillain of Amazon, and now the victim of its bullying.

As Maureen Tkacik writes for The American Prospect, Clark had a long and storied career as Amazon's most vicious and unassuming ghoul, a sweatervested, Diet-Coke-swilling normie whose mild manner disguised a vicious streak a mile wide:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-14-catch-us-if-you-can-dave-clark-amazon/

Clark earned his nickname, "The Sniper," as a Kentucky warehouse supervisor; the name came from his habit of "lurking in the shadows [and] scoping out slackers he could fire." Clark created Amazon Flex, the "gig work" version of Amazon delivery drivers where randos in private vehicles were sent out to delivery parcels. Clark also oversaw tens of millions of dollars in wage-theft from those workers.

We have Clark to thank for the Amazon drivers who had to shit in bags and piss in bottles to make quota. Clark was behind the illegal union-busting tactics used against employees in the Bessamer, Alabama warehouse. We have Clark to thank for the Amazon chat app that banned users from posting the words "restroom," "slave labor," "plantation," and "union":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/05/doubleplusrelentless/#quackspeak

But Clark doesn't work for Amazon anymore. After losing a power-struggle to succeed Jeff Bezos – the job went to "longtime rival" Andy Jassy – he quit and went to work for Flexport, a logistics company that promised to provide sellers that used non-Amazon services with shipping. Flexport did a deal with Shopify, becoming its "sole official logistics partner."

But then Shopify did another logistics deal – with Amazon. Clark was ordered to tender his resignation or face immediate dismissal.

How did all this happen? Well, there are two theories. The first is that Shopify teamed up with Amazon to stab Flexport in the back, then purged all the ex-Amazonians from the Flexport upper ranks. The other is that Clark was a double-agent, who worked with Amazon to sabotage Flexport, and was caught and fired.

But either way, this is a huge win for Amazon, a monopolist who is in the FTC's crosshairs thanks to the anti-corporate vibe-shift that has consumed the nation and the world. As the sole major employer for this kind of logistics, Amazon is a de facto labor regulator, deciding who can work in the sector. The FTC's enforcement action isn't just about monopoly – it's about labor.

Now, Clark is a rich, powerful white dude, not the sort of person who needs a lot of federal help to protect his labor rights. When liberals called the shot in the progressive coalition, they scolded leftists not to speak of class, but rather to focus on identity – to be intersectionalists.

That was a trick. There's no incompatibility between caring about class and caring about gender, race and sexual orientation. Those fast food workers who are about to get a 30% wage-hike in California? Overwhelmingly Black or brown, overwhelmingly female.

The liberal version of intersectionalism observes a world run by 150 rich white men and resolves to replace half of them with women, queers and people of color. The leftist version seeks to abolish the system altogether. The leftist version of intersectionalism cares about bias and discrimination not just because of how it makes people feel, but because of how it makes them live. It cares about wages, housing, vacations, child care – the things you can't get because of your identity.

The fight for social justice is a fight for worker justice. Eminently guillotineable monsters like Tim "Avocado Toast" Gurner advocate for increasing unemployment by "40-50%" – but Gurner is just saying what other bosses are thinking:

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/tim-gurner-capitalists-neoliberalism-unemployment-precarity

Garner is 100% right when he says: "There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around."

And then he says this: "So it’s a dynamic that has to change. We’ve got to kill that attitude, and that has to come through hurt in the economy."

Garner knows that the vibes are upstream of the change. The capitalist dream starts with killing our imagination, to make us believe that "there is no alternative." If we can dream bigger than "better representation among oligarchs" when we might someday dream of no oligarchs. That's what he fears the most.

Watch the video of Garner. Look past the dollar-store Gordon Gecko styling. That piece of shit is terrified.

And he should be.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

EFF Awards, San Francisco, September 14

#pluralistic #factually #adam conover #starbucks #google #antitrust #dave clark #amazon #noncompetes #jennifer abruzzo #nlrb #flexport #shopify #trap #juvly #labor #calfornia #four factors #lessig #california #seiu #fast food #Industrial Welfare Commission #Department of Industrial Relations #sectoral bargaining #unions #hot labor summer #race #intersectionalism #prop 22

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Residential school deniers tried to dig up suspected unmarked grave sites at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, not believing a May 2021 announcement from the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc that as many as 215 Indigenous children had been buried there, according to a new report. "Denialists entered the site without permission. Some came in the middle of the night, carrying shovels; they said they wanted to 'see for themselves' if children are buried there," said a Friday report from Kimberly Murray, the independent special interlocutor for missing children and unmarked graves and burial sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. She did not say who the denialists were or when they came to the site. But the unauthorized visits to the site are the work of a "core group" of Canadians who continue to deny, defend or minimize the physical, sexual, psychological and emotional abuse inflicted on Indigenous children in the Indian Residential School System "despite the indisputable evidence of survivors and their families," Murray said at a Friday news conference. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #Kamloops #British Columbia #Indigenous persecution #genocide denial tw #racism #white supremacy tw #colonialism #residential schools #child death tw #genocide tw #Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc

[homochadensistm]

it's so wild because ppl on here will call you a racist and send you death threats if you say rape denier Bisan is a hamasnik influencer, not a journalist, but if you cite a source of Israeli journalism it's fake genocidal propaganda.

People need to ask themselves 2 very simple questions:

why havent ANY of these """journalists""" cover, talk about or ever mentioned the We Want To Live protests (or ANY anti hamas sentiment in the strip)? These were huge movements that rocked the entire strip.

why havent ANY of them covered humanitarian aid theft by hamas (or the plethora of human rights abuses hamas has engaged in since 2007)? theres tons of vids documenting this, tons of gazans spoke publicly abt this, why havent they?

These ppls social medias are completely public, going back years and years and years. We can take Bisan as just a simple example - her personal fb acc (not the PR pages or profiles, her actual acc) is very active throughout every single month of every year, except for the months when Interesting Things(TM) happen in the strip. If you go back to March 2019, which is when the We Want To Live movement kicked off, she goes silent 1 day b4 the protests pick up, and reappears long after the protests were brutally shut down. If you go back to early February of the same year, when the hashtag WeWantToLive (بدنا نعيش#) was being posted by every other person of her age group in the strip, her fb (and Instagram) was completely inactive. Same for October 7th - goes dark literally 3-4 days before it happens, reappears near the end of January, probably because of her newly acquired ""journalist""" status. Like you have to be purposefully stupid and clinically blind not to realize who these ppl actually are.

#israel #palestine #bisan ouda #wizard bisan