In the World of Sleepers

"Moreover, the institutions of the transnational state largely serve other masters, as state power..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:17:04 +0100

“Moreover, the institutions of the transnational state largely serve other masters, as state power typically does; in this case, the rising transnational corporations in the domains of finance and other services, manufacturing, media and communications—institutions that are totalitarian in internal structure, quite unaccountable, absolutist in character, and immense in power. Within them, a participant takes a place in a fairly rigid hierarchy of domination, implementing orders from above, transmitting them downwards. Those outside may try to rent themselves to the masters and may purchase what they produce, but few other options are open to the great mass of the population.”

- World orders, old and new - By Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)

"A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:58:10 +0100

“

A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The fetishization of female purity in a world where catcalls are an acceptable form of communication telegraphs one thing very clearly:

“Women, stop sexualizing yourselves—that’s our job, and you’re taking all the fun out of it.”

The sexualization of women is only appealing if it’s nonconsensual. Otherwise it’s “sluttiness,” and sluttiness is agency and agency is threatening.

”

- “Female ‘Purity’ is Bullshit”, by Lindy West (at jezebel.com)

Public Service Annoucement

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:31:20 +0100

You are not alone.

There are hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people like me who understand and sympathize with you and your struggle.

Let us unite and conquer it together.

That is all,

Good night.

France legalises same-sex marriage?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:43:23 +0100

Hey France!

thealecdelgado: copulati0n: beavercop: melleigh: This...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:32:24 +0100

thealecdelgado:

copulati0n:

beavercop:

melleigh:

This machine allows anyone to work for minimum wage for as long as they like. Turning the crank on the side releases one penny every 4.97 seconds, for a total of $7.25 per hour. This corresponds to minimum wage for a person in New York. This piece is brilliant on multiple levels, particularly as social commentary. Without a doubt, most people who started operating the machine for fun would quickly grow disheartened and stop when realizing just how little they’re earning by turning this mindless crank. A person would then conceivably realize that this is what nearly two million people in the United States do every day…at much harder jobs than turning a crank. This turns the piece into a simple, yet effective argument for raising the minimum wage.

god damn

We’re all wage slaves.

Oooor you could pick up the thing, take it home and crack it open. This is called a salary… or robbing a bank.

Hey, it is better than the bank robbing you.

"“ Fascism is a term from the political domain, so it doesn’t apply strictly to corporations, but if..."

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:42:52 +0100

“

Fascism is a term from the political domain, so it doesn’t apply strictly to corporations, but if you look at them, power goes strictly top-down, from the board of directors to managers to lower managers and ultimately to the people on the shop floor, typists, etc. There’s no flow of power or planning from the bottom up. Ultimate power resides in the hands of investors, owners, banks, etc.

People can disrupt, make suggestions, but the same is true of a slave society. People who arn’t owners and investors have nothing much to say about it. They can choose to rent their labor to the corporation, or to purchase the commodities or services that it provides, or to find a place in the chain of command, but that’s it. That’s the totality of their control over the corporation.

”

”

- Noam Chomsky, How The World Works; Defective Democracy

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and..."

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:53:23 +0100

““The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.””

- Albert Einstein (via predatorywrites)

"Once I went to Žižek’s house. He was like ‘this is my linen closet’ shows you some towels and..."

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:53:26 +0100

“Once I went to Žižek’s house. He was like ‘this is my linen closet’ *shows you some towels* and ‘this is my Lenin closet’ *shows you communist propaganda*”

- (via metomentodo)

"Here’s a pack of morons who ought to be locked into portable toilets and set on fire. These people..."

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:25:17 +0100

“Here’s a pack of morons who ought to be locked into portable toilets and set on fire.
These people with bumber stickers that say: “We are the proud parents of an honor student at the Midvale academy”, or whatever other innocent sounding name has been given to the indoctrination center where their child has been sent to be stripped of his individuality and turned into an obedient, sold, dead, conformist member of the US consumer culture. Proud parents? What kind of empty people need to validate themselves through the achievements of their child? Heres a sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who has resisted his teachers attempts to break his spirit and bend him to the will of his corporate masters”.”

- George Carlin (via dialectic)

joanofarcsyndrome: Tumblr on @weheartit.com -...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:56:49 +0100

joanofarcsyndrome:

Tumblr on @weheartit.com - http://whrt.it/TN5zfH

"A business or big corporation is a fascist structure internally. Power is at the top. Orders go from..."

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:48:07 +0000

“A business or big corporation is a fascist structure internally. Power is at the top. Orders go from top to bottom. You either follow or get out.”

- Noam Chomsky, How The World Works: The New Global Economy. 1993

"The doctrinal system, which produces what we call “propaganda” when discussing enemies,..."

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:28:37 +0000

“

The doctrinal system, which produces what we call “propaganda” when discussing enemies, has two distinct targets. One target is what’s sometimes excelled the “political class,” the roughly 20% of the population that’s relatively educated, more or less articulate, playing some role in decision-making. Their acceptance of doctrine is crucial, because they’re in a position to design and implement policy.

Then there’s the other 80% or so of the population. These are Lippmann’s “spectators of action,” whom he referred to as the “bewildered herd.” They are supposed to follow orders and keep out of the way of the important people. They’re the target of the real mass media: the tabloids, the sitcoms, he Super Bowl and so on.

These sectors of the doctrinal system serve to divert the unwashed masses and reinforce the basic social values: passivity, submissiveness to authority, the overriding virtue of greed and personal gain, lack of concern for others, fear of real or imagined enemies, etc. The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered. It’s unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what’s happening in the world. In fact, it’s undesirable—if they see too much of reality they may set themselves to change it.

”

- Noam Chomsky, How the World Works: The Media.

"To make sense of political discourse, it’s necessary to give a running translation into..."

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:19:02 +0000

“To make sense of political discourse, it’s necessary to give a running translation into English, decoding the doublespeak of the media, academic social scientists, and the secular priesthood generally. Its function is not obscure: the effect is to make it impossible to find words to talk about matters of human significance in a coherent way. We can then be sure that little will be understood about how our society works and what is happening in the world—a major contribution to “democracy,” in the PC sense of the word.”

- Noam Chomsky, How The World Works: Socialism, Real and Fake.

"The terms of political discourse typically have two meanings. One is the dictionary meaning, and the..."

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:04:00 +0000

“

The terms of political discourse typically have two meanings. One is the dictionary meaning, and the other is a meaning that is useful for serving power—the doctrinal meaning.

Take democracy. According to the common-sense meaning, a society is democratic to the extent that people can participate in a meaningful way in managing their affairs. But the doctrinal meaning of democracy is different—it refers to a system in which decisions are made by sectors of the business community and related elites. The public are to be only “spectators of action,” not “participants,” as leading democratic theorists, (in this case, Walter Lippmann) have explained. They are permitted to ratifying the decisions of their betters and to lend their support to one or another of them, but not to interfere with matters—like public policy—that are none of their business.

”

- Noam Chomsky, How The World Works: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

"When we are pleading with foreign governments to stop the flow of cocaine, it is the height of..."

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:25:25 +0000

“When we are pleading with foreign governments to stop the flow of cocaine, it is the height of hypocrisy for the United States to export tobacco… Years from now, our nation will look back on this application of free-trade policy and find it scandalous.”

- Everett Koop, US Surgeon General, USTR panel

"…when some clients state complains that the US government isn’t sending it enough money,..."

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:10:01 +0000

“

…when some clients state complains that the US government isn’t sending it enough money, they no longer say, “we need it to stop the Russians”-rather, “we need it to stop the drug trafficking.” Like the Soviet threat, this enemy provides a good excuses for a US military presence where there’s rebel activity or other unrest.

So internationally, “the war on drugs” provides a cover for intervention. Domestically, it has little to do with drugs but a lot to do with distracting the population, increasing repression in the inner cities, and building support for the attack on civil liberties.

”

- Noam Chomsky, How The World Works: The War on (certain) drugs, 1992

"A brutal tyrant crosses the line from admirable friend to “villain” and..."

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:23:26 +0000

“A brutal tyrant crosses the line from admirable friend to “villain” and “scum” when he commits the crime of independence. One common mistake is to go beyond robbing the poor-which is just fine-and to start interfering with the privileged, eliciting opposition from business leaders.”

- Noam Chomsky, How The World Works: What Uncle Sam Really Wants. 1992.

"There is no human institution that approaches totalitarianism as closely as a business corporation...."

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 14:25:32 +0000

““There is no human institution that approaches totalitarianism as closely as a business corporation. I mean, power is completely top-down. You can be inside it somewhere and you take orders from above and hand ‘em down. Ultimately, it’s in the hands of owners and investors.””

- reddit (via thequestion77)

So this is now on my listen-to-30-times-a-day list

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 17:52:31 +0000

So this is now on my listen-to-30-times-a-day list

"Back in the 1920s, it used to be frankly called propaganda. But the word acquired a bad flavour with..."

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:03:01 +0000

“Back in the 1920s, it used to be frankly called propaganda. But the word acquired a bad flavour with Nazism in the 1930s. So now, it’s not called propaganda any more. But they were right in the 1920s. The huge public relations industry, for example, has its goal to control attitudes and beliefs. Liberal commentators, like Walter Lippmann, said we have to manufacture consent and keep the rabble away from the decision-making. We are the responsible men, we have to make decisions and we have to be protected — and I quote Lippmann — “from the trampling under the rage of the bewildered herd — the public”. In the democratic process, we are the participants, they watch. And the task of intellectuals, media and so on is to make sure that they are quiet, subdued and obedient. That is the view from the liberal end of the spectrum. Yes, I don’t doubt that the media is liberal in that sense.”

- Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)

In the World of Sleepers

"Moreover, the institutions of the transnational state largely serve other masters, as state power..."

"A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about..."

Public Service Annoucement

France legalises same-sex marriage?

thealecdelgado: copulati0n: beavercop: melleigh: This...

"“ Fascism is a term from the political domain, so it doesn’t apply strictly to corporations, but if..."

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and..."

"Once I went to Žižek’s house. He was like ‘this is my linen closet’ *shows you some towels* and..."

"Here’s a pack of morons who ought to be locked into portable toilets and set on fire. These people..."

joanofarcsyndrome: Tumblr on @weheartit.com -...

"A business or big corporation is a fascist structure internally. Power is at the top. Orders go from..."

"The doctrinal system, which produces what we call “propaganda” when discussing enemies,..."

"To make sense of political discourse, it’s necessary to give a running translation into..."

"The terms of political discourse typically have two meanings. One is the dictionary meaning, and the..."

"When we are pleading with foreign governments to stop the flow of cocaine, it is the height of..."

"…when some clients state complains that the US government isn’t sending it enough money,..."

"A brutal tyrant crosses the line from admirable friend to “villain” and..."

"There is no human institution that approaches totalitarianism as closely as a business corporation...."

So this is now on my listen-to-30-times-a-day list

"Back in the 1920s, it used to be frankly called propaganda. But the word acquired a bad flavour with..."

"Once I went to Žižek’s house. He was like ‘this is my linen closet’ shows you some towels and..."