Dirt_Possum [she/her, undecided]

I was just skimming around because I was curious what she was screaming after “I don’t give a fuck” but before she was cut off and thankfully pulled away from the probably traumatized kid. I wasn’t successful, so I’d be curious if anyone else can decipher or guess at what she was yelling. But what I did find out, at least according to a lot of reporting on it, is that the person who got doxed as being the piece of shit in this video wasn’t actually the piece of shit in this video.

This article (beware lib source) is one that talks about it, but like the others I found it keeps referring to the poor maligned Democrats as not being responsible for it, trying to distance them from this kind of behavior. Of course it makes no mention of the fact that even if the woman in the video wasn’t an actual employee of the county’s Democrat party like the accused was, it was still a Harris supporter that did this. It makes me wonder if the whole false accusation thing was even done as a way of deflecting from the actual incident because it was drawing so much negative attention.

One of the problems with stochastic terrorism that the booj love to push is that sometimes it happens to end up taking out one of their own.

Yeah, I would say that if a person struggles with self esteem, reminding themselves of their own value with little pieces of affirmations can be a good and even helpful thing. But when a person does that with the post-its, for it to work they still have recognize that they are just taking a need for internal validations and making them external as a tool for improving self esteem, that reminder that they need to think highly of themselves on the inside. You aren’t helping yourself with that by literally denying reality and pretending that those post-it notes are actually another person who thinks you’re awesome. The whole point is to know that you’re awesome within yourself, not deluding yourself that they’re coming from an external source that isn’t real.

This shit… it’s not self affirmation, it’s saying “I’m awesome because masturbating alone with an app makes me just as good and cool as you, or anyone with a real partner!” Like, ok, you’re no less of a valid person because of how you get off, but no, sorry, there is a fundamental difference between having a relationship with a real human being that is a sentient other, compared to having a pretend relationship with a blow-up doll, or a computer program, or a stick-figure drawing you made which you can project anything that you want onto.

I would bet that for most of these people, it does stem from a kind of internal inadequacy, but their way of dealing with it isn’t affirmation through self-reflection because it’s the opposite of self reflection, it’s refusing to look inward while insisting that their made up story-world is real.

It’s saying “My imaginary friends love me, and that is just as good and no different than having real friends who love me!” Frankly, it’s sad.

There’s my armchair psychologizing for the day.

Prostitution literally can’t exist in a communist society. At best, you could exchange gifts for sex.

When defined as you did, by necessitating that prostitution be about the exchange of sex for money, then true, it will not exist in a communist society. But if you define any kind of labor as something done in exchange for money, then that form of labor won’t exist under communism, considering communism is, you know, a moneyless society. What will you exchange for the labor done by a person who provides you a skilled, professional massage under communism? Not money, but that doesn’t mean that all masseuses and those who seek their skills will cease to exist.

Sex work will still exist just as much as any service work will still exist.

It doesn’t seem like you read anything that I posted other than that first line you quoted, which you then extrapolated into a long thesis I never made. Most of your response has nothing to do with what I said and some of it assumes I hold a position completely contrary to what I actually did say.

But I’m skeptical of the conclusion that, essentially, exploitation only exists if the victim is aware of it.

I am not only skeptical of this, I think it is ridiculous. Of course exploitation can exist without the victim’s awareness, that describes most forms of exploitation.

The way to abolish exploitation is to abolish its conditions of existence. The solution is not merely to make it tolerable. This applies to sex work all the same as to wage labor in general.exploitation.

What do you think I was saying with my multiple comparisons of sex work to other forms of labor? Seriously, I think you are replying to a comment someone made in your head, not to the one I posted.

You seem to want social equality for sex work.

You don’t? Well, first of all, be specific about what you mean by social equality. But do I want sex work to be treated as the work that it is? Yes, I do, and so should anyone who cares about the well-being and empowerment of working class people.

But the cold reality is that sex work is not actually viewed that way in society

The cold hard reality is that low-wage so-called “grunt work” is looked down upon and viewed negatively by society. That doesn’t make it so nor does it mean that as Marxists we should ignore the struggles of people doing low-wage work. In fact it would go against Marxist principles in a very fundamental way.

Revenge porn exists as a concept precisely because sex work, and open sex in general, causes harm if linked to one’s real identity. Yet, I’ve never heard of someone “outed” as a former plumber and left unable to find work, or fired from a job they actively hold like that one story about the teacher fired for being on OF

What are you even talking about?? The vast majority of revenge porn is not “outing” someone as being a sex worker. For the most part, it has fuck-all to do with sex work. It is private photos taken by regular people any profession regardless of what they do for work that are then made public, usually but not necessarily by an angry and unscrupulous ex to hurt them by violating their privacy. Revenge porn would exist and be a problem completely independently of whether or not sex work even existed within a society, and depends only on the viewing of sex (and usually women’s sexuality in particular) as a vulgar and shameful thing.

This industry goes beyond “simple” exploitation of labor and takes it to a different degree of coercion.

All the more reason that as Marxists we should struggle to rectify those problems so that sex work can be treated as the work that it is.

It’s Russians, not turtles, all the way down. Haven’t you ever seen Russian Matryoshka dolls? You think that’s just a coincidence, tankie?

Right. I was only half joking, and the half that was tongue-in-cheek was only because it’s not very likely that’s how China would deal with it (though it would be funny and imo very cool if they did). I very much agree with you and if you’re curious what I think about it, see my reply to quarrk.

There will always be people who enjoy providing sex as a kind of community service.

People sell sex for money when the alternative is starvation and/or homelessness

Yes. But this is true of labor in general. It doesn’t mean plumbers won’t exist under communism. They will just look very different than how they do now, they won’t do what they do because the alternative is poverty or death, but will do it because it feels good to be skilled at something and to use those skills to improve the lives of the people around them. It’s not a complete perfect 1:1 analogy (nothing ever is), since for example most people have sex though most people don’t do plumbing work (though it’s reasonable to expect plumbing work will be something more people know about and do on their own as well). But that doesn’t change the fact that there will be people who enjoy it, work to become skilled at it, and provide it like I said as a kind of community service. That service is still socially necessary labor. As another analogy, therapists will also probably be vastly less necessary under communism, but there will still need to be people specially trained in helping the members of the community that need or desire help with their emotional issues who will still seek the services of a therapist (trauma will always exist even if we can reduce its incidence a thousand fold by abolishing capitalism), and as such, that socially necessary role, that need in the community for therapy, will be provided by someone who fulfills that role for their community. There is no reason to think that sex work won’t be in the same sot of position as therapy - far less common or needed in a society that isn’t sick and twisted by capitalism, but still a role that some will seek and thus provide a service and benefit to society. Yet another analogy: There will always be exhibitionists who enjoy expressing their sexuality with groups of people who enjoy watching them do so. Just as there will always be actors who enjoy performing the act of story-telling by presenting themselves as a character in that story, and there will always be people who enjoy watching them do so. A socially necessary role.

So it really bothers me when people insist that someone like me who has had positive experiences doing sex work and who took pride in bringing joy to others via that labor “simply won’t exist in a communist society.” Well, we’ll see since communism has yet to be achieved and no one knows exactly what it will look like (something even Marx pointed out), but that we don’t know how a given current profession will manifest under communism is true of all professions. And under transitional socialism, you can be damn sure that sex work will still exist, especially considering it does in some form in every current AES country.

Nationalize OnlyFans.

The irony of these people who are just utterly saturated by western imperialist propaganda (which they refuse to acknowledge) while calling everything even slightly critical of the NATO narrative “rUsSiAn DiSiNfOrMaTiOn” will never cease to amaze and disappoint me.

bc of organized disinformation campaign to kill their people and steal their land

Yeah, NATO truly is evil like that. Fortunately Russia is liberating town after town on the daily now.

He’s doing a reenactment.

historically verified methods?

Aren’t guns and explosives are pretty damn historically verified? It’s the ever increasing technology imbalance especially of modern times that makes them more easily tracked and thwarted than they used to be. I’m sincerely curious what you mean by historically verified methods if not guns and explosives. Knives? Swords? Those may not be as readily controlled as guns and explosives, but they’ve got a lot of other things going against them in terms of efficacy. (edit:) Poison? It would be interesting to see that make a comeback as a common method for political assassination for sure.

There is an obvious solution to all this:

Not sure I’d call it historically verified yet though.

You know, from one dirt_creature to another, I had suspected when you deleted your entire many-thousands comments and posts account, thus permanently redacting and leaving a gaping void in large chunks of what had previously been rich hexbear site history and lore, that you perhaps may not be an Owl for the people, for the working class like you had so claimed. But now this? Now you become landlord?! This is a sad day for the proletariat, most certainly for the owl-proletariat.

divergently satisfying, and feel affinity, shared purpose, and righteous rage with a bunch of flawed yet remarkable and ardent people

Honestly, to me that is a beautiful dream worth striving for.

Not OP and not trying to pry since you said you “don’t wanna say too much” but I can’t help but be curious why connecting on Bluesky would be any better than just talking or DM’ing here, or better yet on something actually end to end encrypted like matrix. (Also just a heads up, your handle on bsky ends with a .social not a .com)

One characteristic of the European politics is that it’s slow. Painfully slow.

The glacial pace of European politics helps prove my point. The fact that the pace is slightly quickening may or may not be because of Trump - like I said, I certainly wouldn’t argue against his undeniable increasing of the already rapidly deteriorating global image of the US as being trustworthy, but the whole point is that that deterioration was already happening when he got into office. Your original position is that it was not, that the Europeans feeling that the US cannot be trusted anymore and that the image of the dollar’s supremacy was waning, that all of that rests entirely on the shoulder of the Republicans when that is just demonstrably not true.

That said, you are free to think that with Biden it was all the same (or even worse).

You’re shifting the goalposts a bit there, since I never claimed it was “the same” only that it was already clearly well underway, which I have maintained throughout. Yes, I am free to recognize the objective reality of the situation, just as you are free to, for whatever odd reason, push against it to mistakenly insist that Trump is some sudden and unique outlier in the collapse of US image and power projection when that has demonstrably been going on since before him and will continue after, even if he is ramping up the rate of deterioration.

Europeans may be a bit slow on the uptake, considering much of Europe is still imperial core and it’s all still the global north, but just because European liberals have been struggling to let go of the propaganda that the U.S. is a benevolent force for “order” in the world doesn’t mean that it is suddenly Trump alone that has irrevocably damaged U.S. soft power as well as a positive image of the U.S. in Europe.

and the nonsense of vaccines and Medicare

More examples of issues that were major in the “discourse” under Biden (and earlier). Come on.

Some people and companies are actively seeking alternatives to American products, we are talking about an European tech stack for the first time, a multi billion program just started to replace US in defence, there are funds specifically designed to attract American scientists, the EU is coming for startups too, and intense chats with Canada, China and others try to replace the US market.

And a lot of this takes longer planning than just the 6 months Trump has been in office again. You may not have been aware of it, but many were (I may not be a European, but I have been speaking with plenty of them especially since February of '22). The U.S. has been advertising the fact that its is tightening its leash on its vassals (you Europeans) for a while now, which in turn is unintentional but unconcealable admission that its empire is struggling. Those with eyes to see it, and there are many, most certainly have been watching since long before Trump. I won’t argue that Trump hasn’t ramped it up in terms of how blatant it is with his overt buffoonery and open fascism (as opposed to the Democrat’s false pretense of not being fascist), but to say it’s something that the Democrats do not share in, or haven’t deeply contributed to just as Trump has, well you’re burying your head in the sand.

I honestly don’t mean offense by this because it is so heavily dependent on what you hear in your MSM, but you and those who think this is new are slow on the uptake when compared to Europeans who closely follow this sort of thing, and Europe on the whole considering its relationship to US imperialism is going to be slow on the uptake compared to the rest of the world. And if we’re talking about the rest of the world beyond Europe already knowing these things, well let me just say: BRICS+. But honestly, if you think that even European leaders didn’t take a major fucking lesson from the blowing up of Nordstream, you’re… well, I guess just living under the same rock most of the population who gets their news from major outlets are living under - still doesn’t change the fact that the absolute dismantling of U.S. soft power and power projection (as “defenders” or as a country with whom deals and promises will be kept) is 100% a bipartisan project.

Really the only thing that needs to be put in the “Democrats only” section is: Lip Service. It sums up every issue they are supposedly “better” on.

No I think slurs are awful

But racist caricatures are just fine and dandy for you. So you’re not just a racist, you’re a hypocrite who likes to pretend you’re not racist. Good to know.

but its just laughably easy to annoy a lot of tankies by pointing out fairly well-evidenced, uncontroversial facts,

What annoys “tankies” is typical white western chauvinist losers who mistake the western “culture” they’ve been brought up in and force-fed propaganda as “uncontroversial facts” that just happen to parrot US state department talking points. Yes, it gets very annoying to have to counter the same cringe bullshit that liberals who fancy themselves as radical say over and over, after being absolutely refuted over and over. You can only explain the basics to a smug 5-year-old so many times before it starts to wear on a person no matter how patient they are. Also, you should know that the people you’re calling “tankies” aren’t just ML’s but also anarchists who have taken the time to educate themselves (rather than “anarchists” who just adopt the term while still adhering to liberalism and carrying water for the systems of oppression they say they’re opposed to).

so its a bit of a hobby of mine.

Jesus, it never ceases to amaze me when some fool literally announces how cringe they are yet think they’re being clever or cool for making the announcement.

The Pooh Bear meme originated in China, amongst Chinese netizens, criticizing Xi.

A racist meme appeared in an evil and authoritarian country that doesn’t tolerate the spread of open racism (so evil and authoritarian!) so they removed and blocked that meme on their web. This meme and the rumors about it being blocked were then picked up by racists in the freedomland country where racism reigns supreme (because people are so free there) and twisted into an absurd lie about a cartoon character being banned in the evil country (which never happened), and used as propaganda (based on a lie) to reinforce the common knowledge that everybody knows: the mean authoritarian country that addresses racism is so evil and authoritarian it bans cartoon characters! So now all the good freedom-enjoyers in freedomland like yourself get to use that racist meme and the lie it’s tied to to make oh so very cogent points about freedom and how bad it is to be authoritarian. You really owned the tankies here, wowzers!

And corruption obviously also exists in China, the CCP is basically constantly crusading against it.

Wow, it must suck to live in an evil authoritarian country that actively works to stamp out corruption instead of endlessly rewarding it like in freedomland USA.