I love this philosopher. I don’t think any other author has been able to help me think clearly about issues like pornography or inspire me to be unafraid of meaningful, socially impactful, creative self expression.

Power

BY AUDRE LORDE

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn’t notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4’10” black Woman’s frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody’s mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time

“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”

reallifedocumentarian:ankh-kush: This has gotta be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen on the internet Black Panther Party and the Asian American Political Alliance The very birth of the term Asian American came from a rejection of white supremacy, institutional racism and in full support of Black Power [via the Asian American Political Alliance, particularly in regards to the work being done by the Black Panthers]. We stood together. Some of us still stand together. We must stand together again. I fucking love this gif.

reallifedocumentarian:ankh-kush:

This has gotta be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen on the internet

Black Panther Party and the Asian American Political Alliance

The very birth of the term Asian American came from a rejection of white supremacy, institutional racism and in full support of Black Power [via the Asian American Political Alliance, particularly in regards to the work being done by the Black Panthers]. We stood together. Some of us still stand together. We must stand together again.

I fucking love this gif.

Learning about Angela Davis for the first time was the best part about taking a course on feminist philosophy this semester

Learning about Angela Davis for the first time was the best part about taking a course on feminist philosophy this semester

democracylookslike: Three High School Students Arrested in Sit-In at JPMorgan Chase, Banking Skyscraper Completely Shut Down to Public Posted by Devon Whitham 450.80k on October 24, 2012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 24, 2012 Contact: Devon Whitham; (562) 370-8411; devon@99Rise.org Guido Girgenti; (646) 249-6500; guido@99Rise.org Students Demand Full Disclosure of All Secret Political Spending in Run Up to Most Expensive Election In History…

democracylookslike:

Three High School Students Arrested in Sit-In at JPMorgan Chase, Banking Skyscraper Completely Shut Down to Public

Posted by Devon Whitham 450.80k on October 24, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 24, 2012

Contact: Devon Whitham; (562) 370-8411; devon@99Rise.org 
Guido Girgenti; (646) 249-6500; guido@99Rise.org

Students Demand Full Disclosure of All Secret Political Spending in Run Up to Most Expensive Election In History…

Malala Yousafzai is a Trotskyist revolutionary. Mainstream media make no mention of this fact: In one incident the Taliban killed 14 people in one village and hanged their bodies from the trees as a warning. Only two people dared to bury the bodies. Later they began to organize resistance to the terrorists and they are now members of the IMT. Despite all the difficulties and dangers, the comrades of the International Marxist Tendency in Swat organized a very successful Marxist School this summer, from July 13th to July 15th. The school was attended by more than 225 comrades from all over the country. Even some soldiers were present. Also present was comrade Malala Yousafzai, who spoke in the debates. She was full of confidence and enthusiasm in the just cause for which she was fighting.   Now, not three months later, she is fighting for her life in an intensive care ward in a Peshawar hospital, with a bullet lodged close to her brain.

Malala Yousafzai is a Trotskyist revolutionary. Mainstream media make no mention of this fact:

In one incident the Taliban killed 14 people in one village and hanged their bodies from the trees as a warning. Only two people dared to bury the bodies. Later they began to organize resistance to the terrorists and they are now members of the IMT. Despite all the difficulties and dangers, the comrades of the International Marxist Tendency in Swat organized a very successful Marxist School this summer, from July 13th to July 15th.

The school was attended by more than 225 comrades from all over the country. Even some soldiers were present. Also present was comrade Malala Yousafzai, who spoke in the debates. She was full of confidence and enthusiasm in the just cause for which she was fighting.  

Now, not three months later, she is fighting for her life in an intensive care ward in a Peshawar hospital, with a bullet lodged close to her brain.

thepeoplesrecord: Imagine - No more shareholders, no more private sector, just more democracy & less capitalism October 12, 2012 The way capitalism works right now is that workers are told what to produce, how to produce it, what role to play in production, how long they will work, etc. Then there is a decision maker, or in larger companies, a decision making body, made up of share-holders who are not workers and do not have workers’ interests in mind and don’t care if the environment gets ruined or if shipping jobs overseas is disruptive to the livelihoods of the people they employ, etc. Democracy doesn’t exist in this sector which we’ve called the “private sector”. Democracy@Work is a movement focused on changing that. With Worker Self Directed Enterprises (which are a little different from co-ops), workers make the decisions collectively. They share skills, trade jobs and everyone decides collectively on how to divide the labor and of what to do with the surplus that’s created. Imagine working 4 hour days Monday-Thursday and coming into work on Friday and spending all days in meetings with your coworkers deciding what to tackle the next weak, how to tackle it and dividing the labor appropriately. Everyone’s the worker. Everyone’s the boss.  Imagine the impact that that could have in society and imagine the threat it could create for capitalism - a more viable, more human alternative to capitalism that doesn’t take on the baggage from the years of propaganda and misinformation against the words “socialism” and “communism” and that provides a type of stability and safety for society that has never been provided with capitalism. We could have consciously-anticapitalist workers self directed enterprises that set out both to succeed in order to sustain themselves and to change or overthrow the system that allows for wage-slavery under the guise of a “private sector” (meaning the private space where the rulers of the world get to continue to be the unchecked rulers of the world, the owners, the exclusive decision makers, etc without the nagging influence of democracy).  I love this movement because it frames capitalism where it belongs, as the opposite to democracy. And again, by taking the ideas of Karl Marx and applying them to the society we actually live in today in 2012, Richard Wolff does a service to the left, giving us one way to talk about capitalism that can be effective without all the propaganda-nonsense associated with words like “socialism” and “communism”. Additionally  if you think of these ideas as a first step, as a way to build infrastructure to channel the growing left into, to get groups of people practicing collective action and gaining confidence in their ability to achieve great things through working together, then the implications of building this go beyond systemic reform, they could provide the material circumstances for a revolutionary situation, without having to take on the baggage of publicly aiming to do so. There’s also something about this concept that seems to me could be uniting on the left between anarchists, socialists and progressives. It’s consciously anti-capitalist, but not overtly revolutionary. It’s workers-focused, but not so centralized as some fear socialism would be. And it’s an idea that now has a growing organization working on spreading it, which gives it a fighting shot of entering the realm of discussed ideas in our society.  Richard Wolff goes line by line to address obvious criticisms to these ideas in his new book by the same title “Democracy@Work” and answers questions like: “How could this work on a large scale?” (here’s a hint: Google Mondragon), and “Could this work in America?”, “Could workers really make the decisions themselves?” etc. I’d like to work on building a WSDE in the near future and would love to see this idea get spread across tumblr, becoming a blip on the radar of many of the socially-aware young in our society, as it continues to be something that I think we should be thinking about and channeling ourselves into. We face unprecedented circumstances in society today, the likes of which many who are older than us have yet to even begin to acknowledge; unemployment paired with austerity measures and rapidly inflating tuition & student debt have created monumental challenges for this generation. Unfortunately, it will be up to us to find creative solutions out of this mess and I think this is one worth considering.  Richard Wolff does monthly updates in New York (if you’re ever in the area you can see them live for free). Here’s the most recent one that I was at a few days ago, which covers most of what I’ve mentioned in this article and more.  -Robert Photosource of one Arezmendi bakery (they have six locations) - a successful worker owned, democratic workplace bakery chain in the Bay Area.  I look forward to exploring this material, looks like some awesome radical left thought to me :)

thepeoplesrecord:

Imagine - No more shareholders, no more private sector, just more democracy & less capitalism

October 12, 2012

The way capitalism works right now is that workers are told what to produce, how to produce it, what role to play in production, how long they will work, etc. Then there is a decision maker, or in larger companies, a decision making body, made up of share-holders who are not workers and do not have workers’ interests in mind and don’t care if the environment gets ruined or if shipping jobs overseas is disruptive to the livelihoods of the people they employ, etc. Democracy doesn’t exist in this sector which we’ve called the “private sector”. Democracy@Work is a movement focused on changing that.

With Worker Self Directed Enterprises (which are a little different from co-ops), workers make the decisions collectively. They share skills, trade jobs and everyone decides collectively on how to divide the labor and of what to do with the surplus that’s created. Imagine working 4 hour days Monday-Thursday and coming into work on Friday and spending all days in meetings with your coworkers deciding what to tackle the next weak, how to tackle it and dividing the labor appropriately. Everyone’s the worker. Everyone’s the boss. 

Imagine the impact that that could have in society and imagine the threat it could create for capitalism - a more viable, more human alternative to capitalism that doesn’t take on the baggage from the years of propaganda and misinformation against the words “socialism” and “communism” and that provides a type of stability and safety for society that has never been provided with capitalism. We could have consciously-anticapitalist workers self directed enterprises that set out both to succeed in order to sustain themselves and to change or overthrow the system that allows for wage-slavery under the guise of a “private sector” (meaning the private space where the rulers of the world get to continue to be the unchecked rulers of the world, the owners, the exclusive decision makers, etc without the nagging influence of democracy). 

I love this movement because it frames capitalism where it belongs, as the opposite to democracy. And again, by taking the ideas of Karl Marx and applying them to the society we actually live in today in 2012, Richard Wolff does a service to the left, giving us one way to talk about capitalism that can be effective without all the propaganda-nonsense associated with words like “socialism” and “communism”. Additionally  if you think of these ideas as a first step, as a way to build infrastructure to channel the growing left into, to get groups of people practicing collective action and gaining confidence in their ability to achieve great things through working together, then the implications of building this go beyond systemic reform, they could provide the material circumstances for a revolutionary situation, without having to take on the baggage of publicly aiming to do so. There’s also something about this concept that seems to me could be uniting on the left between anarchists, socialists and progressives. It’s consciously anti-capitalist, but not overtly revolutionary. It’s workers-focused, but not so centralized as some fear socialism would be. And it’s an idea that now has a growing organization working on spreading it, which gives it a fighting shot of entering the realm of discussed ideas in our society. 

Richard Wolff goes line by line to address obvious criticisms to these ideas in his new book by the same title “Democracy@Work” and answers questions like: “How could this work on a large scale?” (here’s a hint: Google Mondragon), and “Could this work in America?”, “Could workers really make the decisions themselves?” etc.

I’d like to work on building a WSDE in the near future and would love to see this idea get spread across tumblr, becoming a blip on the radar of many of the socially-aware young in our society, as it continues to be something that I think we should be thinking about and channeling ourselves into.

We face unprecedented circumstances in society today, the likes of which many who are older than us have yet to even begin to acknowledge; unemployment paired with austerity measures and rapidly inflating tuition & student debt have created monumental challenges for this generation. Unfortunately, it will be up to us to find creative solutions out of this mess and I think this is one worth considering. 

Richard Wolff does monthly updates in New York (if you’re ever in the area you can see them live for free). Here’s the most recent one that I was at a few days ago, which covers most of what I’ve mentioned in this article and more. 

-Robert

Photosource of one Arezmendi bakery (they have six locations) - a successful worker owned, democratic workplace bakery chain in the Bay Area. 

I look forward to exploring this material, looks like some awesome radical left thought to me :)