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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 30th, 2023

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  • Class war is war.

    The US has literally bombed its citizens on 2 occasions because of class resistance. The military has literally taken up arms against the citizens it swore to protect over class differences. We describe violent clashes between workers and the bourgeoisie as “battles.”

    Just because we’ve experienced a period of unprecedented peace doesn’t mean class conflict is over–it will not be over until class is abolished.

    Also, revolutions, civil war, and war in general are most often illegal.


  • The state has convicted and executed innocent people. The average criminal subject to capital punishment has killed an order (or several) of magnitudes fewer people than the health insurance industry.

    As a country we seem to weigh more heavily acts of individual violence than those of systemic violence or violence borne of policy even when the latter 2 have far more impactful and wide spread negative results. It’s completely logical to draw a distinction between the 2 circumstances.

    I’m not saying all vigilante justice is good, and I wouldn’t necessarily be against the state holding to account executives who have produced systems and policies that result in the harm or death of the state’s citizens, but in the current system justice is rare and in this act millions of people received justice.










  • Yes, if you have the means.

    I work with a mutual aid group that engages in street outreach. I experience a lot of different cases and pretty much all of them would be benefitted by having more money.

    Some people have a job, but not a home, and are trying to get housed

    Some people have a home, but not a job and are trying to stay housed

    Some people have neither and are trying to stay alive

    Some people have both, but are so underpaid for the area they are in and are trying to stay housed

    Some people are migrants and it is 100% illegal for them to work in the US and their only source of aid is through asking the community

    Not one of them enjoys the situation they are in nor has made an explicit choice to be or stay homeless.

    A lot of people who panhandle stay in encampments. These provide a small community with a lot of support structures for those there. There’s often someone who knows how to cook anything with any source of heat, someone who knows how to treat wounds, someone who knows what each person in the camp needs, and someone who’s plugged into the broader community and can get things for those who can’t (not all food pantries or lines are accommodating for wheelchair users and those with mobility issues can have trouble waiting for hours for food or even getting there). My point being that even if your contribution doesn’t help the person asking directly, it likely helps someone they know.

    And if you’re worried about the whole “they’ll just spend it on drugs” thing, I honestly wouldn’t. Among the people I work with maybe 1/3 of them use drugs and very very few use anything other than weed. Employed and housed people use weed to unwind, why is it so much more evil if you don’t have a house? And if you’re working with the 2/3 of people that don’t use drugs than it’s not really a concern. I do realize that those numbers might be vastly different in areas that were more harshly hit by opioid issues.






  • Also shelters don’t count and you cannot interpret refusal to stay at a shelter as “wanting to be homeless.”

    I help out with a street outreach mutual aid group. I’ve not met a single person that wanted to be homeless but I’ve met tons of people that don’t want to fuck with shelters cause:

    • they have to get rid of their dog
    • they can’t bunk with their partner or children
    • they are trans and most of the shelters are religiously affiliated
    • there are tight curfews and early kick out times
    • no guarantee of consecutive night stays or even a bed, no consistency
    • you can’t have friends over
    • you can’t have more than one bag
    • you must walk outside to a separate communal bathroom–even in a blizzard–if a pee cup is discovered you’ll be kicked out
    • you must attend religious services prior to receiving aid
    • some shelters are day only

    The streets are harsh, but in most cases the shelters are worse. Their only consistent benefit is that they are warm when it’s -20F out and if you keep your head down the police will probably not fuck with you.


  • This has been tried multiple times across numerous jurisdictions. Consistently it’s been found that giving poor people money makes them less poor in the long run. This seems to be an unsavory result, however, so politicians let the experiment retire never to actually learn from the results and draft policy.

    This experiment is going to work and then nothing will come of it only for another jurisdiction to try exactly the same thing again and find exactly the same results.

    The myth of meritocracy is still too prevalent a belief.