ErsatzCoalButter

joined 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

Heyyyy you're right

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

Since all my local newspaper websites went pay-to-read, I walk two blocks to my local library and read the hard copies maybe once a week. There's only about one or three articles per week that aren't just USA Today internet drivel, so it's not like I'm sitting there for hours pouring through papers like a maniac, and how dare you picture me that way.

If you are a traveler, it is a good trick to pick up as many library cards as you can get your hands on. So many libraries are traveler friendly from old COVID policies and if you aren't working touristy towns, even pretty flimsy community connections can get you a card. "Oh I work for this practice in the community, can I-" and when your contract in that community ends, what, are you going to go turn in your library card? And let your community's ebook DRM go to waste? No 😜

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

You know I think he actually uses the music producer example in his 2nd novel (The Bezzle).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (6 children)

Doctorow can write a great detective novel but he lives in absolute La La land. I'm glad he's open about the fact he's just distracting himself with this post, but the idea that these webs of laws or these models of "how things should work" mean anything tho the people with power are complete nonsense.

He has some understanding of that, I think? But like, buddy, your country just went full Nazi. You've been living in a total fantasy. You're not going to rethink the concept of fixers, get a grip.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago

The people who tell you to be civil aren't going to help you on the line, generally. Unless its one of those fake protests like The March for Science.

Don't let people who aren't going to help you tell you how to behave.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There are some things you can do that hurt America.

  1. Leave. You won't be welcome elsewhere unless you have roughly 125k saved, liquid cash. That may not matter based on where you are at on the ladder but it really wrecks my family. For example, if you're broke and unwelcome in the USA, maybe roll the dice? This is not legal advice. We're stuck by family and fake middle class assets. "Not welcome" means you cannot legally work elsewhere, you are subject to the USA. We live under feudalism internationally.
  2. Stop spending money. All USD money is Nazi money. The less you spend, the less the machine goes.
  3. Don't work for cops. As in outright refuse to do anything to help cops, ever.
  4. Donate to causes that actually erode US sovereignty like Indigenous legal defense funds, and leave your assets to the people your land was stolen from.

edit* This is all assuming you won't fight, because I was there in 22 and there wasn't a fight. That's when we lost our rights. So don't pretend like fighting is an option please, this isn't that kind of forum anyway.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Don't let propagandists tell you that you have to survive a nazi regime

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Seeing as the US is a transcontinental slave empire, it does make sense that they wouldn't emphasize literacy among their populace.

 

Wikipedia TL;DR

Oil! is a novel by Upton Sinclair, first published in 1926–27 and told as a third-person narrative, with only the opening pages written in the first person. The book was written in the context of the Harding administration's Teapot Dome Scandal and takes place in Southern California. It is a social and political satire skewering the human foibles of all its characters.

The main character is James Arnold Ross Jr., nicknamed Bunny, son of an oil tycoon. Bunny's sympathetic feelings toward oilfield workers and socialists provoke arguments with his father throughout the story. The beginning of the novel served as a loose inspiration for the 2007 film There Will Be Blood.

My Take: Basically the TL;DR is that Oil companies have been buying politicians and stalling progress while their actions destroy the lives of untold masses forever. This book is like 100 years old, so that means it has been a big enough problem to write a whole pulpy novel about it for longer than any of us will ever live. Corporations are bad. Great characters and retro cultural obscura!

Linked below is an excellent copy by Standard Ebooks you can legally have for free if you also want to be mad about the oil industry and capitalism more broadly.

Oil! 🌋 Upton Sinclair

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

lmao, the article is about the UK

if you would like to criticize American education anyway, perhaps we could find a nice article about that subject together

*edit: here you are

**edit 2, i still don't want to talk about your teacher @[email protected] 😜

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

in about 201X I was having a terrible time trying to get through the thesis period of a master's program

picked up some bundle of the OG 2DS (black & blue variant) and Pokemon X and loved it

a world where I could pick my friends, people were pleasant, my next career moves were obvious, and my work was rewarded? To this day, this is my escapist fantasy.