Tag: capitalism

thebibliosphere:

I try, when talking about certain things, not to talk from a place of panic. Speaking from experience, panic spreads like wildfire and can just as easily burn down the thing you are trying to protect just as readily as the thing you are trying to protect it from.

The people in charge know this, and are relying on you being frightened of them. Wilful obedience would be better, but fear is also a malleable thing they can work with. It helps people to bend, thinking it will prevent them from being broken. Except the people trying to make you bend, don’t give a single fuck if it breaks you. Control is more important to them, control and the continuing illusion of power. Anyone else that gets smashed under the wheel of their authority is considered *gestures vaguely* negligible and acceptable damage.

So while I understand the inclination to run screaming in circles over certain recent events (trust me, I do it often enough myself) it is vital that you don’t let it own you. Fear is a vital part of our survival instinct, but only if we know how to use it. It lets us know, much like pain, that something is very wrong and we should do something about it.

And you don’t have to be fearless to be brave. To quote our dearly beloved Space Mother, Carrie Fisher, “stay afraid, but do it anyway.”

(And I know it’s hard for a lot of us, I really, really do. There are some days my clusterfuck of mental health issues are just so bad I can’t uncurl from the fetal position long enough to stay hydrated, let alone fight the good fight. But even on those days merely existing is an act of rebellious defiance.)

So you see, I’m not trying to be blase when I talk about certain things. Just because you don’t see me visibly screaming in terror doesn’t mean I’m not doing it on the inside. By remaining visibly calm, I am in fact trying to help other people to not be afraid. To give them some sense of understanding and feeling of control over the situation so that in turn they might be better equipped to help me and others so inclined like me, to fix this shit.

Acknowledge your fear. Let it pass over and through you, breathe it in and hold it in your lungs, then let it out like fire.

You do not need to be a ray of sunshine to be the positive change you want to see in the world. Sometimes you can be a very small, very afraid flicker in the darkness. Just don’t let that flicker go out.

Ontario government’s proposed changes reduces employers’ obligation to pay overtime, critics say

allthecanadianpolitics:

A new bill aimed at eliminating “burdensome regulation” will reduce employers’ obligations to pay workers overtime, resulting in “crazy schedules and less pay in the pocket” for employees, critics say.

Bill 66, an omnibus bill that aims to “stimulate business investment, create good jobs, and make Ontario more competitive” loosens regulations around overtime, including scrapping a provision that requires employers to seek approval approval from the Ministry of Labour to exceed a 48-hour work week.

Most significantly, says Deena Ladd of the Toronto-based Workers Action Centre, the bill will remove regulations around the practice called overtime averaging, which has significant implications for how much overtime workers receive.

“Overtime averaging means less money in people’s pockets,” Ladd said. “The only purpose of it is that it helps employers avoid paying overtime, which is absolutely then eroding your basic floor of rights

Continue Reading.

Ontario government’s proposed changes reduces employers’ obligation to pay overtime, critics say

adamussutekh:

adamussutekh:

ocean-in-my-rebel-soul:

queenology:

Now this is interesting

Article: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mjxg/apple-tumblr-porn-nsfw-adult-content-banned

YES!! I LIKE THIS TAKE!!

Basically, because I know Mobile is bad with links, the article points out hat the broad, “sfw only, no titties allowed” wave on the internet in recent years is largely due to Apple’s absolute stranglehold on the App Store. Apple has strict guidelines about NSFW content that choke creators right out of mainstream social media, even on sites like Reddit, for users of their products: 

But there are fewer and fewer mainstream sites and services that support porn and adult content, and much of that attitude has grown out of Apple’s strict controls over the App Store and the iOS ecosystem. Steve Jobs famously suggested that “folks who want porn can buy an Android phone,” and Apple has repeatedly leveraged its unprecedented power over millions of smartphones to sanitize the apps that are available on iPhones. Apple does not allow apps “that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic.” In 2016, Apple famously deleted all third-party Reddit apps that allowed users to toggle NSFW posts on and off; even now, it is impossible to access porn on an iOS Reddit app unless you jump through various hoops.

remember though that this anger isn’t about Being Horny On Main, it’s about sex workers, their platforms and followers, NSFW creators and their art, and adult content communities that are continually being shoved out of spaces they created in recent years: 

Tumblr’s leadership seems to believe that the community using Tumblr for adult content is the same as any other porn site—showing a serious disconnect with how its users actually interact and connect on its own platform. “We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community,” he wrote.

The value of Tumblr for NSFW creators and fans was in the autonomy to curate something original, and the freedom to express and share what they’re into—something that can’t be replaced by algorithmically-suggested porn on the rest of the internet.

it was mentioned before somewhere else, but 20% of Tumblr’s traffic is brought in by content they’re now flagging as “adult” 

This is yet another example of a platform ignoring adult content when it helps the platform flourish, and then leaving those users out to dry when it’s time to crack down for some monetary gain or face-saving. In addition to being a terrible way to treat your user base, banning adult content on Tumblr will stifle a lot of creativity.

and of course, Apple is also one of the companies that has repeatedly come under fire for censoring lgbtq/queer identities on their sites, the app store, and also caved to russia’s anti-lgbtq policies like a stick of rotten bamboo

The communities that will feel this change the most will be the already-marginalized. “Tumblr banning adult content is a huge loss for the LGBTQ community, especially those with overlapping marginalized identities,” Kitty Stryker, a queer porn performer and consent activist, told Motherboard in an email. “For many, that’s the one place we could find porn that represents us, made by indie performers who created their own content outside of an often racist, transmisogynist, fatphobic industry. Tumblr was where our content could exist without pushing us into the restrictions of a misogynist, male dominated workplace.”

Source: queenology

journeythroughalife:

chronicreality:

chens:

sexeducationforprudes:

theropegeek:

someofthisrumham:

take-this-sinking-ship:

y0ulittleshit:

soybeanbaby:

Every time I hate my body I remember that there are millions of old rich white men who benefit from my self hatred and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s old rich white men so I snap out of that shit instantly cos I ain’t EVER giving them the satisfaction.

Oh my fucKING GOD

Wait stop this is a game changer.

i have reblogged this 4 times; i have thought about this every fucking day

Reminder!

“If every woman in the world woke up tomorrow and decided that she loved herself and loved her body just the way it is, how many industries would go out of business?”

IMPORTANT

Hey look a few more industries for us millennials to kill!

This is the most motivating thing I’ve ever seen in regards to me stopping hating on my self

prokopetz:

I know folks mean well, but arguing that Article 13 will deprive media corporations of the free advertising furnished by Internet memes and fan media isn’t going to get you anywhere because that’s the entire point.

The whole idea of Article 13 – and the push toward copyright overreach more generally – is to make self-publishing (of all kinds, not just fan media) so onerous that only folks who operate under the auspices of corporate backers can afford to do it.

i.e., they’re trying to roll back to the pre-Internet status quo when a tiny handful of publishing corporations had absolute control over all non-local media distribution channels, and – unless the author was independently wealthy – media was permitted to reach a wide audience only with their explicit approval.

The mechanism is pretty straightforward: Article 13 and legislation like it would establish a presumption in law that the corporate claimant in any copyright dispute is correct, and place the onus upon the author as a private individual to prove otherwise. At the time of this writing, the average cost of bringing a copyright dispute to court is in the neighborhood of $200 000. What private individual has that kind of money?

It’s not just about fan media. This type of legislation would allow publishing corporations to claim that they own anything they please, and hosting providers would be obliged to block distribution of that content purely on the claimant’s say-so, unless and until the dispute is resolved in court – and unless you’ve got two hundred grand to burn, that resolution will never happen.

Of course, there’d be remedies short of going to court – like, say, signing on with a publishing company yourself, so that they can “protect” your intellectual property on your behalf. See where this is going?

Pointing out the potential for short-term harm to publishing corporations’ bottom line is a non-starter because no amount of loss of exposure could possibly outweigh the benefits to the publishing corps if the long game pays off.

Scrapping labour reforms is damaging Ford’s popularity: poll

allthecanadianpolitics:

cosmicdwarf:

allthecanadianpolitics:

Rolling back labour reforms — including cancelling paid sick days and freezing the $14-an-hour minimum wage — is taking its toll on Premier Doug Ford’s popularity, a new poll suggests.

The Campaign Research survey found Ford’s Progressive Conservatives, who won the June 7 election with 40.5 per cent of the vote, have dropped to 34 per cent.

That compared to 32 per cent for the Liberals under interim leader John Fraser, 25 per cent for Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats, and 7 per cent for Mike Schreiner’s Green.

Continue Reading.

Why the hell are the Liberals so high?

Probably because Doug Ford has been removing all of the Liberals ‘good’ policies.

This would paint a more rosy picture of the Liberals than reality reflects, as they also did a lot of bad stuff while in office. But those Conservatives policies that the Liberals put into law, are not being targeted by Doug Ford.

The irony is that a lot of these good Liberal policies that are being cut were implemented as a way to try to buy votes from NDP supporters just before an election.

Scrapping labour reforms is damaging Ford’s popularity: poll

Students want Ontario to scrap special minimum wage that is lower than that paid to adults | The Star

onpoli:

Ontario is the only province in Canada to
have a minimum wage for young workers that is lower than the minimum
wage for adults — and Grade 12 student Taamara Thanaraj isn’t happy that
a scheduled increase to that rate may soon be frozen.

She was one
of a group of 30 students who gathered under drizzly skies at Yonge and
Bloor Sts. Friday to protest Bill 47, provincial legislation that, if
passed, will result in significant rollbacks to labour protections
recently enacted including increases to the general minimum wage and the
subminimum wage for students.

“Right now, minimum wage is not a livable wage for a lot of people,
especially for parents. That’s why a lot of young people do work,” said
Thanaraj, who attends the Scarborough Academy of Technological,
Environmental and Computer Education at William Arnot Porter Collegiate
Institute.

Bill 47 will keep the general minimum wage at $14 an
hour, but cancel an increase to $15 scheduled for January. It will also
cancel a scheduled bump from $13.15 to $14.10 an hour for students’
minimum wage.

Students want Ontario to scrap special minimum wage that is lower than that paid to adults | The Star