Good Intentions Co.

"I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, the state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us"- Charles Bukowski

Rant for the day

I do not want to hear “Things just have to get ‘bad enough’ then everyone will become radicalized and join the revolution”

How many of my sisters have to be raped before things get bad enough?

How many queers have to get bashed?

How many children have to go hungry?

There is this strange perception on the left that once a crises hits we will all magically come up with a revolutionary analysis. First of all, in crises the folks that have historically been oppressed just experience more oppression. Second, there is an incredibly obnoxious audacity in the idea that leftist radicals are just waiting for everyone else to come around. That the ignorant masses just need to be shocked by true chaos and then everyone will come running with (A) scribbled on their notebooks.

I want to trouble the idea that revolutionary consciousness is linear, formulaic, possibly inevitable process. I think it takes a lot more political education and empathy then we would like to admit.

To me the “bad enough” mentality relies on the macho-Marxist, cointelbromance idea of the revolution in which everyone finally takes the streets. It ignores the fact that acts of radical resistance happen every day, from caretaking to someone leaving an abusive partner.

The fact is these sort of statements shy away from the back breaking work of abolition. How do we name and resist the ways that we have internalized the state? When harm does occur, how do we deal with it? Who does the dishes? Ect.

The Revolution is not a five minute youtube video to a great hip hop sound track. It is something you carry with you in all of your actions and something you enact in all of your relationships.

lostupnorth: Marie Randal (Lakota Elder) partakes in the opening ceremonies of “Moccassins on the Ground” activist training. When Keystone XL comes to us, we will be ready. -Deb White Plum

lostupnorth:

Marie Randal (Lakota Elder) partakes in the opening ceremonies of “Moccassins on the Ground” activist training. When Keystone XL comes to us, we will be ready. -Deb White Plum

People will kill you over time, and how they’ll kill you is with tiny, harmless phrases, like “be realistic.

—Dylan Moran, What it is

(Source: jaythemaniac, via decolonizeyourmind)

Me: Is your brain like Wikipedia?!

Ben: Nah, its more like Twitter.

Me: That’s real.

thepeoplesrecord: Cambodian workers on hunger strike against Walmart & H&MFebruary 28, 2013 Self-organized garment workers at a Walmart and H&M supplier factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, have been camping in front of their shuttered factory for almost two months to prevent their bosses from taking out the sewing machinery. Now the workers have escalated to blocking roads, and will launch a hunger strike February 27—all to push Walmart and H&M to pay them the back wages they are owed. Their cause is drawing support from workers at another Walmart subcontractor on the other side of the world. “We decided to go on hunger strike to show that we not just any workers,” said one of the leaders, Sorn Sothy, 26, who works in the warehousing part of the Cambodian factory. “We are strong, committed, and united.” The workers were informed in September that their factory, Kingsland Garment Co., Ltd., would temporarily close until January. Under Cambodian labor law, they would be paid 50 percent of their wages during this time, and brought back to work in January. But in December, the paychecks stopped coming. The company union told the workers that the company was bankrupt and the owner had fled the country. The garment workers are owed around $200,000 collectively—less than what Walmart makes in profits every six minutes. Since their boss-run union wouldn’t fight back, 200 workers organized themselves and began protesting outside the factory gates January 1. In the middle of the night January 3, they noticed company staff attempting to remove the sewing machines from the factory. “We decided to start sleeping outside of the factory to prevent management from taking the machinery out,” said Yorn Sok Leng, 30, who has worked at the factory for two years. With the help of a worker center, the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), the workers occupied the outside of the factory—setting up tarps, a sleeping area, and a kitchen. Source

thepeoplesrecord:

Cambodian workers on hunger strike against Walmart & H&M
February 28, 2013

Self-organized garment workers at a Walmart and H&M supplier factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, have been camping in front of their shuttered factory for almost two months to prevent their bosses from taking out the sewing machinery.

Now the workers have escalated to blocking roads, and will launch a hunger strike February 27—all to push Walmart and H&M to pay them the back wages they are owed. Their cause is drawing support from workers at another Walmart subcontractor on the other side of the world.

“We decided to go on hunger strike to show that we not just any workers,” said one of the leaders, Sorn Sothy, 26, who works in the warehousing part of the Cambodian factory. “We are strong, committed, and united.”

The workers were informed in September that their factory, Kingsland Garment Co., Ltd., would temporarily close until January. Under Cambodian labor law, they would be paid 50 percent of their wages during this time, and brought back to work in January.

But in December, the paychecks stopped coming. The company union told the workers that the company was bankrupt and the owner had fled the country.

The garment workers are owed around $200,000 collectively—less than what Walmart makes in profits every six minutes.

Since their boss-run union wouldn’t fight back, 200 workers organized themselves and began protesting outside the factory gates January 1. In the middle of the night January 3, they noticed company staff attempting to remove the sewing machines from the factory.

“We decided to start sleeping outside of the factory to prevent management from taking the machinery out,” said Yorn Sok Leng, 30, who has worked at the factory for two years.

With the help of a worker center, the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), the workers occupied the outside of the factory—setting up tarps, a sleeping area, and a kitchen.

Source

(via decolonizeyourmind)