ok but this unironically works. talk about how the working class is exploited and you can basically sell full-on marxism to your average republican if you do it right. all you have to do is avoid the words “Marx,” “capitalism,” “socialism,” “communism,” “means of production,” etc – just use synonyms. say “big business” or “corporate shareholder interests” instead of “capitalists.” say “a government that prioritizes the needs of the working people” instead of “socialism.” it WORKS. I’ve DONE it. the hardest sell are usually things like social and racial equity, welfare, things like that, because people have been primed with the racist/classist idea that those things are somehow unfair – but you can get your foot in the door to getting them to buy into those too if you start with class issues. read up on your theory, make sure you REALLY understand your own ideology, because that will enable you to reword it and successfully sell it.
In my experience, you can often help sell ‘welfare’ stuff by appealing to self-interest with a touch of Aren’t We Great.
Disability benefits: “I mean, sure, there are probably some sad sacks who are gaming the system, there always are, but hell, with the amount of taxes we pay, the government can afford a few freeloaders, right? I’d rather pay for a couple people who don’t really need it than not have the system at all for if I need it, or my kids do, or whatever. I mean shit happens. What if some asshole drunk driver puts me in the hospital and it takes me a year to get back on my feet? Or Heaven forbid something permanent happens. I’ll sure be glad that I can get disability then, won’t I?”
UBI: “I dunno, the kind of guy who’ll just sit on the couch playing Call of Duty all day if he doesn’t have to work, I kinda don’t want him on my job site anyway. That type is just taking up a place that you could fill with someone who’ll actually get the job done, you know? You end up short-handed even though you technically have enough people because everyone else has to pick up his slack. And it’d mean that if your boss is a dick you can tell him to shove it and not worry your kids are gonna go hungry while you find a better place. We can sure as hell afford it.”
Racial equity: “I’ve got a lot more in common with a Black guy who’s just trying to get the job done than I do with some rich white asshole who thinks the sun shines out of his ass because of how much money mommy and daddy have.”
As questions continue to swirl regarding the motive behind last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell investigation Monday that suggests alleged gunman Tyler Robinson, 22, once had a transgender Uber driver. “In its thorough examination of the suspect’s activities in the years leading up the shooting, the Journal found evidence that in March 2021, Robinson rode for nearly 12 minutes in the backseat of a Nissan Sentra driven by a transgender woman,” veteran investigative journalist James Kovacs wrote in the article, which reports that Robinson appeared to have been satisfied with the experience, having given the driver a perfect five-star rating and a $2 tip.
“Fantasy authors don’t know how long a thousand years is!!!!!! Knock a zewo off the end!!!!!!!111!!!1” Did you know that it’s never too late to learn whimsy and joy
And it’s doubly ridiculous when people apply it to Lord of the Rings. Sure, a lot of fantasy does it for the Vibes – which is a perfectly valid reason to do it that does not invite any criticism actually – but in LotR there is a specific reason why Gondor has existed for four thousand years and hasn’t had an industrial revolution and it’s because Tolkien was extremely aware of and actively making a point about the large scale ecological harm brought about by large scale industry and technological progress for the sake of progress. Most of Tolkien’s cultures are in a position where they could have kickstarted an industrial revolution whenever, but never did because they value trees and rivers and nature and natural beauty more than the small advantages granted by wide-scale production. And they did keep developing and advancing in some ways. Gondor canonically has a cure for cancer. Like Gondor’s medical science is so much more advanced than IRL medical science. They didn’t stop developing, they just developed differently and with different values. You know who’s having an industrial revolution? Saruman. Discussion questions: what do we think Professor Tolkien’s opinion on the industrial revolution is? Do we think that most of his cultures not having had one was perhaps an intentional choice driven by one of the core themes of his work? Are we going to examine at all our own preconceived notions that an industrial revolution is some kind of inevitable natural occurence, like puberty but for society?
You know who ELSE decided against an industrial revolution and megapolises because they valued the trees and the land more than “progress”? Turtle Island. There’s evidence that many peoples moved toward living in larger and larger settlements and then just… decided to stop doing that, at some point, and go back to smaller settlements. The Comanche were the first people to put every single tribe member on horseback and fully adopt a lifestyle of constant migration. That was a choice.
Everyone across Turtle Island had complex relationships of trade and migration and shared space at different times, taking turns with various locations. That’s why on Native-Land.ca you see so much overlapping of various peoples.
And you know who else was like that? The Celts! The Celtic trading routes were THE largest and most complex in Europe. They built wooden roads strong enough to carry large carts over wetland, and their trade network went all the way to the silk road! That means they could get their goods halfway around the world. All without being a huge empire–they were a bunch of groups interconnected by common cultural ties, but they were not one single nation. We just call them The Celts bc we have very little to know what they called themselves, as the Romans genocided the fuck out of them (and everyone else around Rome–but none more than the Celts, who had gold–which Rome did not have).
There’s countless other civs that I don’t know much about that lasted for thousands of years without European industry. Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Polynesia, Ancient Egypt, the many Australian Aboriginal peoples… Just because one dinky little monotheistic death cult hasn’t lasted more than a couple thousand years doesn’t mean SHIT, jackson. XD
Oh wow so me saying “no government documentation should ever include a gender marker for any reason” has been right all along. For exactly the reason I stated when people were giving me shit for not supporting x markers on documents.
