occasionally the universe orders one of its many snipers to fire a warning shot at me. not to cause any (physical) harm, mind you. they’re just reminders that the universe hates me and could snuff out my puny little life anytime it wishes.
today that warning shot came in the form of my microwave burrito being completely empty. no filling. just tortilla.
how can you look at this and still believe the world is kind and just
Spanish newspaper El Confidencial reported that Amazon met with police officials after the strike was announced. It wanted local officers “to force employees to go to their respective jobs and ensure their performance was identical to that of a normal working day.”
Amazon’s request “dumbfounded” police, according to El Confidencial. “The request was categorically rejected by the police, who maintained that controlling labour productivity doesn’t fall within its powers,” a police source said.
Law enforcement officials reportedly emphasized to Amazon that Spanish law protects workers’ right to strike. They told the company that police would be present at the strike but would limit themselves to keeping the peace.
Oh it actually gets so muchh worse. I just read the Spanish article that reported this and apparently:
1) This is not the first time Amazon approached the Spanish police for this (previously in July and March). They were always denied.
2) In response, Amazon hired a private security company to smuggle a bunch of people into the protest to take images “for future reprisal”.
3) They lied to the media when questioned about this insane attempt to strong-arm the police.
Fuck Bezos, seriously. I mean, the idea of Amazon is great, but how the fuck did we get to this point?
the response of the police has been childish and comparable to throwing a tantrum because something isn’t actually about you. fun fact!!! the purpose of pride and the lgbt community is actually not about being “inclusive of everyone”, it’s purpose is entirely and exclusively about protecting the rights of gay and trans people!! if police feel threatened by that, then maybe they should do some deeper thinking into why they feel so entitled to be welcomed and accepted by a minority group that has historically been targeted by police!!
pride being seperate from police and from corporations is how it should be, and if auckland can prove that they can make it work, hopefully wellington and many other cities can follow suit!!!
I also want to point out that the fundraising for Auckland Pride isn’t being organised by Pride itself, but by a coalition of organisations and ordinary people opposed to the racist, transphobic pigs marching in Pride. This is important because Auckland’s reactionary gay middle class has sided with the cops and is going to try to roll the Pride board next week in a special general meeting. The fundraising being organised by outsiders means that, even in the likely event that Pride ends up being organised by the corporate vampires who are currently boycotting it over the ban on police uniforms, all of the money will still go towards organising a pride for the people.Please donate if you can, and help us demonstrate that pride doesn’t belong to the state or the rich.
Y’know I suspect the reason transmeds confuse me is because I HAVE dysphoria
Like, I’m pretty sure a body that exactly matches my internal map is only possible in the glorious transhumanist future ANYWAY. Which means I don’t know that I’ll ever not have dysphoria to some degree no matter what I do or don’t.
Which in turn leads me to a radical pro body modification stance. You wanna tinker with your body?
Well, it IS yours.
You don’t owe anyone an explanation, least of all my weirdo ass.
Do I think you should think hard about it? Hon if I wasn’t a fan of thinking hard I probably would have been on t by now.
But some people live by careful planning, and some people live by following their emotions, and *both of those things are fine* as long as you know you’re doing them.
Honestly, rock on the transhumanist bodymod future!
Even on a small scale like…my feet are deformed because of childhood neglect. (think a lesser form of footbinding. it’s that bad) I dream about cutting those fuckers off and replacing them. Being able to stand or walk without pain? Being able to buy shoes that fit me? I would love to be able to just…go for a walk secure in the knowledge that my toes won’t wind up underneath my foot when it swells up.
Literal day dreams there. And that’s for something as small as “walking/standing causes me pain” rather than “my body doesn’t feel like mine”
BRING IT ON!
And honestly. If you don’t think through your body mod decisions before acting, who is harmed? No one but yourself. If you hate it, now YOU’re the one who has to deal with doing whatever you can to walk back the change as much as possible.
If you get a tattoo on a whim and then decide it sucks and you don’t want it… well, laser removal exists. So do cover-up tats. Neither is an ideal option, so it’s generally wise to consider the possibility that you might get a tat you hate *before* you’re already inked, but… if you do just one day wake up and think “I have a few hundred bucks I could blow and it suddenly seems like a really good idea to get a sexy pinup-girl version of garfield the cat tattooed on my left asscheek”… well, if you do it and then a week later you’re like “what the fuck was I thinking when I got a sexy pinup-girl version of garfield the cat tattooed on my left asscheek”… you’re the person who’s gotta deal with the fact that you did that thing and wish you hadn’t. I still don’t really care. I mean, I care in that I might be sympathetic to “I wish I had not done that thing” kinda feels, but your bad tattoo decision doesn’t harm me in any way so unless I’m the confidante you tell all about your deep regret over the sexy pinup garfield ass-tat… there is no reason for me to even know that it’s a thing that happened, and it’s definitely not my place to declare that you should have been prevented from making such a poor decision somehow.
Then factor in the bit where, if we put limits in place to stop bad-decision garfield ass-tats from being a possibility, we’d also make it unnecessarily and unfairly difficult for someone who’s spent the last five years wishing that they had a sexy pinup cartoon cat on their buttock and carefully saving up and planning exactly how they want it to look, and whose emotions upon finally attaining said ink would be gleeful and delighted for years to come, to succeed in fulfilling that desire.
And honestly, I care more about allowing people who really know what they want to make modifications to their own bodies without interference, than I care about babysitting people who are prone to impulsive bad decision making to prevent them from having to deal with regrets. If you’ve got a buddy who does that for you, then great, but it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the general public to make sure that you can’t get regrettable tattoos. Or make any other regrettable body-modification choices. Because for ANY body mod that you can imagine and be horrified by the thought of… there’s probably someone out there who would be utterly thrilled by it for the rest of their life.
And I’ve got two tattoos, one of which I planned and thought about for years and the other of which I made the appointment to get literally within two hours of first having the idea occur to me. I don’t regret either of them, but… the spontaneous one has turned out to be the one I more frequently actively appreciate having (possibly because it’s just above my collarbone so I see it in the mirror A Lot, while the other is on my ankle and I usually wear socks so I don’t just happen to see it at a glance as often, but still). I also pierced my bellybutton sorta on a whim, and still love it a year and a half later. So clearly spontaneity of body-mod decisions doesn’t necessarily correlate to regret levels.
I suspect this is where the difference of opinion comes from, actually.
We see transition as a body modification regimen of hormones and surgery that should be covered by insurance because it’s necessary for many people’s well being.
But you don’t HAVE to need body modification for your well being for it to be okay for you to modify your body. It’s yours. You get to do what you want with it, even stuff you might regret.
Transmeds seem to see it as “taking medicine” or “having treatment.” This means that you have something wrong with you, you go to a professional so they can find out (or confirm) what the issue is, and then you are given a “course of treatment” or “a surgery” to fix or mitigate that specific problem.
So on this view, “no I actually want a deep voice and a bigger dicklet, which require modifying my body” isn’t a justification—it would be like if you said “I take Advil because I like the way the coating tastes.” It won’t kill you, but it’s still not a great idea.
Given that it actually is body modification though, I can… understand view 2 but not agree with it.
Men are not inherently violent, predatory, or dangerous. Any feminist project worthy of the name needs to acknowledge that this behavior is taught. The idea of men being biologically predisposed to being abusers or rapists is actively used against abuse and rape survivors / victims
(does the phrase “boys will be boys” ring a bell at all to you?) and will never, ever work in our favor.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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