“Globalization – the handmaiden of Cheap at All Costs – is celebrated as a solution, when it is the problem. And even astute economists seem unable to realize that when another country’s comparative advantage is based on environmental crimes, low pay, and inhuman conditions, then comparative advantage doesn’t operate the way it’s presented in textbooks and abstract econometric models.”
—The Walmartization of America Redux: How the Relentless Drive for Cheap Stuff Undermines Our Economy, Bankrupts Our Soul, and Pillages the Planet (via azspot)
December 2011
25 posts
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
—Leo Tolstoy (via kari-shma)
Updates from Wukan, the fishing village staging open rebellion →
shanghaiist.com
For the first time on record, the Chinese Communist party has lost all control, with the population of 20,000 in this southern fishing village now in open revolt.” So begins Telegraph correspondent Malcolm Moore’s report of what he has personally witnessed in the fishing village of Wukan, Guangdong over the past few days. Enraged over government land grabs, villagers have now overrun local authorities and driven police out. They remain barricaded within their village, roadblocks set up by both police and villagers preventing food and water from entering. […]
From Sydney Morning Herald:
Locals said the land sold was collectively owned by the residents. They were unaware of the sale until construction work began on the land. Their outrage was also fuelled by the fact that some of the land was used for the graves of the village people’s ancestors. […]
The situation began to heat up again last Friday, when authorities arrested five of the villagers’ 13 self-appointed representatives negotiating a solution. Another confrontation between villagers and riot police took place on Sunday at barricades set up by villagers to keep police out.
Personal story about how, please excuse my language, fucking corrupt the U.S. military is
I have a number of stories that I could potentially share with you but I’m only comfortable with sharing one, which is, perhaps, the least outrageous of the bunch. I don’t like getting too personal on this blog for a number of rather obvious reasons but I find this to be too important not to share. I will, however, remain vague. I doubt I’ll leave this up for long either.
Over the last few months, my family and I have been trying to convince my little brother not to join the U.S. military. He recently graduated from the police academy and was poorly advised to join the military to increase his chances of being hired into more prestigious ranks. Despite presenting him a mountain of evidence which clearly states that this is not true, he’s hell bent on joining anyway. Now, his reasoning for wanting to get into law enforcement purely rests behind his desire “to help people.” We can discuss how joining the military and returning to be a police officer is a terribleidea but I’ve already lectured him on why that is ad nauseum. That’s not the point of this story anyway.
If he were to join, given the rank and position assigned to him, it would be mandated that he be deployed to a major combat zone, aka Afghanistan. He would also be amongst those the most highly targeted and not only likely to die but to come back without a soul/a complete mess. This is my little brother. Of course I don’t want him to be deployed but he’s also not the type of person who can handle the realities of war.
Anyway, he went to a recruitment office in Milwaukee, I believe the one on Oakland, which is famous for recruiting poor minorities. They told him he needed to be off of a certain medication for over a year before he could enlist. He wasn’t happy about this so he talked to his doctor, who refused to engage in dishonesty and say he hadn’t prescribed my brother this certain medication in over a year. Upon relaying this bit of information to the recruitment office, they told him to convince our parents to write a letter and lie, saying he’d been off this medication. Of course, my parents (who don’t even want him enlisting in the first place) refused and my dad, being the guy that he is, wrote a very lovely letter to the military and several influential politicians. I’m not sure why the military wants my brother off this certain medication but they could be potentially endangering him and his health by getting him to enlist and begin training early. One of the major consequences of taking this drug is the possibility of developing serious heart problems and he’s been diagnosed with having an issue with heart palpitations, which the medication only makes worse, especially when one engages in heavy physical activity. Great, so having him lie and enlist early could kill him. That’s nice.
However, lying on a U.S. military application, if found out, could also result in a dishonorable discharge, which would absolutely destroy his career in law enforcement for the rest of his life. They pushed and pushed him to lie, including several higher ups out of Milwaukee. Now, since Tumblr is firmly on the “fuck the police” wagon, you may see that as a good thing. Great, one less cop. I happen to agree. However, even though I am biased, my brother is not the type of person we mostly see in law enforcement these days. He’s an incredibly sensitive and caring individual. He volunteers in homeless shelters for fun for Christ’s sake. I don’t see him as a police officer but more as a guy behind the scenes working with victims. He does too. Those are the positions we need more of but since the U.S. military is short on personnel that hasn’t already served 3-4 tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, they’re hard on recruiting new individuals.
In addition to the mountain of other garbage I’m not comfortable with talking about on a public forum, this incident only hardens my belief that the U.S. military doesn’t give a shit about its recruits and I’ll be damned if they’re going to send my little brother off to Afghanistan, a country whose citizens are being murdered in an act of hegemonic state terrorism, so that he can die or be one of the 45,000 who come back injured, or one of the 250,000 who come back with a severe brain injury, or one of the 18 veterans who kill themselves each and every day. The military wanted my brother to lie and potentially destroy his career, depriving the U.S. of someone law enforcements needs, someone who’s very talented with talking to vulnerable people and is a largely nonviolent person.The U.S. military can go fuck itself.
“My wife and I are thinking of adopting and shockingly found in Texas, the cost for a white infant was $35,000 and the cost of a black infant was $17,000 – these are published numbers on private adoption websites.”
—
The price of babies, by color | Chris Blattman (via abbyjean)
BUT OMG RACISM DOESN’T EXIST!
(via nessfraserloves)
That is seriously disturbing.
(via ladyatheist)
BUT GUISE. SUPPLY AND DEMAND. the market CHOSE those values. Let the invisible hand do its work!!!11!1!!
(via anticapitalist)
“
Please understand and accept our confirmation that the inappropriate, and unthinking behavior of a young team member at one of our restaurants does not support any claim or even suggestion of racism at our restaurant. The individual clearly violated our operating standards; the matter was addressed and discussed immediately with the guests on the spot; and a confirmation was provided that the employee was immediately dismissed for the individual behavior.
Our Chick-fil-A restaurant Operators and their employees try very hard every day to actually go the extra mile in serving ALL of our customers with honor, dignity and respect. The circumstances here are a simply case of immaturity, failed judgment, and human error….it has nothing to do with the service and operational standards of our Chick-fil-A restaurants which are consistently rated at the highest level of service in the foodservice industry.”
” —Chick-Fil-A’s response to this post about a racist cashier who named two Asian customers “Ching” and “Chong” (via fascinasians)
tldr: we just dont like gays but the asians are cool
(via weexist-weresist)
zing
dear cracker ass white people who hate immigrants
THERE IS NOTHING
YOU HAVE DONE
TO DESERVE CITIZENSHIP
WALTZING OUT OF YOUR MAMA’S WOMB ONTO AMERICAN SOIL DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE DESERVING OF JACK SHIT
LOOK AT THE PERSON TO YOUR LEFT WHO IS A CITIZEN
THERE IS NO REASON WHY YOU BITCH ABOUT THIS PERSON DESERVING MORE ACCESS TO JOBS, OPPORTUNITIES, RESOURCES, AND RIGHTS THAN THE IMMIGRANT WHO HAS BUSTED THEIR ASS FOR DECADES TRYING TO PROVIDE A GOOD LIFE FOR THEIR CHILDREN AND IS NOW BEING DEPORTED
THERE IS NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME, A PERSON WHO HAS LIVED IN AMERICA SINCE THE AGE OF 2, AND A WHITE US-BORN CHILD
this idea that we owe citizens something first is a result of an imagined community or fictive kinship. but unlike other forms of kinship which exist under certain dynamics of obligation or power (families, communities, etc), the fictive kinship of valuing your fellow citizen over your fellow immigrant or assuming that said citizen is deserving is entrenched in racism and jingoism.
for the life of me i cant understand people who feel compelled to protect their fellow citizens over immigrants. what the fuck did all you bitch ass crackers do to deserve the right to vote? to live free of the fear of deportation? to be told that the land you grew up in is yours? to be able to report rape and domestic assault without fearing your families might get torn apart? to be able to participate in controversial political activities without fear that you might get sent to a foreign land?
citizenship is a ridiculous fictive kinship.
and all you crackers can eat a bowl of dicks.
so many people I want to send this to
in bright
bold
flashing letters
A reader’s comment posted online in response to Friday’s New York Times article about Gulnaz’s pardon is typical. After expressing disbelief at the subjugation of women in “most of the Muslim world and large parts of Africa,” the reader added: “By the way, I must once again say how much I love America. We have our problems but boy, we do it right!!!!!!!!!!!!” Even the liberal Daily Kos observed, “We could never imagine anything like this happening here.”
But before we get too smug, we should recognize that our legal tradition has roots that are not all that different from those we condemn, and you don’t have to look too far back in history for outrageous examples. For example, it was only in 1980 that the California Legislature made it illegal for a husband to rape his wife. As late as the 1950s, the right of a husband to take his wife by force was enshrined in the laws of every state. As legal authority Rollin Perkins put it in 1957: “A man does not commit rape by having sexual intercourse with his lawful wife, even if he does so by force and against her will.” Shocking, yes, but that had been the law for millenniums. When a woman said “I do,” she was deemed to have given lifetime consent to her husband’s sexual demands.forget 1980 laws are pro-rape now america isn’t “almost as bad” as brown countries america is worse than most “major” countries, period
and yet soooo quick to point the finger at how backwards they think non-white places are
not to mention the huge amount of oppressive things in these places that are the direct fault of the colonial west
^
also tbqh if you want to talk about the oppression of muslim women, why is the first thing you always mention the fucking burqa
like shit even if you do believe muslim women are universally oppressed then you should talk about bigger issues than something like they cant show their fucking faces
>the misogyny of traditional patriarchial muslim cultures expressed as nation-state policies (saudi arabia, women not being able to get divorced in some countries, etc)
>the misogyny of sharia (sorry i dont buy into sharia at ALL), in particular with the rape laws
>forced pregnancy and marriages
>etc
if youre going to be a douche you could at least be an effective one??
(the reason you dont talk about this is because these things are not unique to muslim society; it just underlines the racial terms on which the burqa debate is *always* engaged)
Racism in Brazil
Racism in Brazil has been a major issue ever since the colonial era and the slave era imposed by Portuguese settlers. A research published in 2011, indicates that 63.7% of the Brazilians consider that the race interferes in the quality of life of the citizens. For the majority of the 15 thousand interviewed, the difference between the white people’s life and the nonwhite’s one is evident in the work (71%), in questions related to the justice and the police (68.3%) and the social relations (65%).
A result of the research, elaborate in 2008, is not exactly a surprise in a country where, although being barely half of the Brazilian population, the black peoplehen no more than 8% of the 513 chosen representatives in the last year. And the salary of a white man in Brazil is, on average, 46% over the one of a black man, what also can be explained by the difference of education.
Of those earning less than minimum wage, 63% are black and 34% are white. Of the richest Brazilians, 11% are black and 85% are white. In a survey conducted in 2000, 93% of respondents acknowledged that there is racial prejudice in Brazil, but 87% of those same respondents claimed that they felt no racial prejudice. This indicates that Brazilians recognize that there is racial inequality, but prejudice is not a current issue, it is the remnants of slavery. According to Ivanir dos Santos (the former Justice Ministry’s specialist on race affairs) “There is a hierarchy of skin color where blacks appear to know their place.”
