Oppression; A Short Essay On The Effects of Power, Suppressing The Weak

 I recently got into a discussion on twitter about Patriarchal oppression on women. The person on the other side of the argument was saying that Patriarchy was only oppressive to women, while men are not oppressed. My argument was that Patriarchy is universally oppressive regardless of gender. That gender roles were oppressive, regardless of gender, and that double standards are equally oppressive regardless of who is on either side. This was probably the most I have ever typed the word "oppression" in a day. I feel like there was a communication loss is 140 characters, so I wished to further clarify points, and go into the nitty gritty about what oppression is.
 The best way to learn what something is, is to define it. Dictionary.com defines oppression as; "the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner."
 Keep those main points in mind. It's the exercise of power in an unjust or cruel manner. By definition oppression could be police beating peaceful protesters, that certainly is an exercise of power, and certainly is cruel. It could be being refused a job despite being qualified based on the color of your skin, that's unjust.
 Oppression by figures in power or authority has been around for thousands of years, whether it's Hitler's ghettos and death camps, or it's the Jim Crow laws of the 50's and 60's, you can go back to monarchs of Europe who sent thousands on death marches and taxed the poor to death, all the way forward to groups that choose to use beheadings and torture to prove power.
 The idea of oppression in the context of the discussion I was having was referring to Patriarchal oppression, the idea that men rule the society and stack chips against women, keeping them in position of subservience compared to male counterparts. My argument was that under the Patriarch, oppression against males was also bred, in regards to forced gender rolls, discrimination against men being proper caregivers to children, an imbalance in conscription laws, and lack of support for men who are victims of hetero-domestic violence and rape crimes. The counter argument that was made against me was that, Males aren't oppressed, because woman have far more against them when it comes to the ruling Patriarch. While I won't argue that a lot of women have it worse than men in most regards, the argument that all injustice isn't oppression gets me.
 A man can't be oppressed if no one takes a rape crime against him seriously, but a woman is oppressed if she doesn't get a job she is more qualified for than a man. Either way that is injustice bred by the power of the patriarch, thus is oppression. You can't say, because generally someone has it better than someone else the person in the worse situation is oppressed while the one that doesn't have it as bad isn't. Just because 6 million Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, doesn't mean that they are anymore oppressed than the 100,000+ Kurds killed during the Al-Anfal campaign. It's wrong on either level, no matter the severity. Just because, few men feel the effects of Patriarchal oppression doesn't mean that the oppression doesn't effect them too. It stops them from living their lives in a truly free way. It's authoritative control unjustly effecting another human being. IT IS OPPRESSION.
 I also tried communicating another idea, and that is the equilibrium of oppression.  What effects someone, effects everyone. A man is working on a project to revolutionize rocket engines for spacecraft, he is a contractor for a company that hires an assistant for him. The administrator that does the hiring doesn't hire women, and rejects several well qualified female candidates and chooses a less qualified male. The man working on the project is hindered by the less qualified assistant and the project takes longer and costs more. That money that was wasted on the increased length of time was tax payer funded. The man was oppressed by the patriarch by having under-qualified assistant in the project with him. The unjust control of the hiring process directly effected him, it also effected everyone down stream who funded the project. These tax payers are men, they're women, they are non-gender identified, it doesn't matter, the cycle of oppression effected them equally.
 Oppression holds everyone back not just men, not just women, not just black, not just white. It directly effects us. Anytime an unjust power holds a section of humanity back, it holds everyone back. We should take the plight of others as serious as we take our own. It is only through empathy, understanding, and unity we will ever effect change.

-This is Phillip saying Make Total Destroy

The Two Types of Libertarians

For the most part Libertarians and Anarchists get along. We both don't like government, we both agree consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want within reason and both groups for some reason flock to deserts. Now that being said Libertarians as a whole can be broken down into two groups, generally. Really smart people and really crazy people.
 What I mean by this is, you have the group of smart kids, the ones in high school who would debate politics, maybe started off skewed a little right, then became full blown Libertarians in college or maybe they didn't go to college, but I digress. Next you have the crazy Libertarians, which anyone in the more extremist communities could be a little familiar with. These are your drug dealers, your backwoods rednecks that believe you can fight off an army with an AR-15, and your hyper extremists who prep for the revolution and have a shrine to Gary Johnson in their bomb shelter

                                Praise our lord and savior Gary Johnson May you deliver us from the GOP

Where'd Yah Go Phillip

Hey guys it's gonna be about a week before you see another blog post outta me. I am going to be BUSY as HELL. I just recently released my new EP. "Dirty Room, Dirty Mind". I will post more after I don't have to pull all nighters. In the meantime let's take those bastard fat cats down?

DIY Youth Subculture Alive and Well, but Not Really

 Being a "punk" kid in these times is a bit different than it was at anytime previous. On one hand there are a lot more people making their own music, independently releasing music (thanks to Band Camp), and a great range of free thought available thanks to the  internet. On the other hand a lot of the 80's/90's DIY environment is dying, being replaced by newer venues, music, and social media.
 Things change, and I get that. I am not from that generation, but every time I hear of a 20-30 year old independent venue closing down I get kind of sad. When I hear that this year's PIX Fest may be the last I get sad. When I hear about bands breaking up and musicians retiring I get REALLY sad. The reason I get so dang sad is, I realize in 20-30 years punk will be around, I still believe the youth culture will be strong, and I still believe people will playing 3 chords as fast as they can with their thoughts and opinions blaring. I just know I won't recognize it at all.
 It reminds me of the Descendants song "When I Get Old"...it scares me a bit not going to lie. I bet when Chris Calvin was young he never saw it coming, same thing with Brett Gurewitz, Ian Mackaye, Jello Biafra, that the scenes they built, the culture they contributed to, the music they invented would be so drastically different in time. I guess I could waste my time whining about it or I could just get over it and accept it.

I bet Milo, never saw it coming either!

Anarchy at 20

 Looking back to when I first started getting into Anarchism, back when I was 17, I see how much I have changed. Today is my 20th birthday, I am not nearly as angry as I was, not nearly as self destructive and nihilistic either. I feel like my views haven't changed very much, but my outlook has. I thought the whole being an Anarchist thing was solely yelling at cops and saying you hated the government. Now I know that it's a lot about civic responsibility and making an effort for change.
 So I celebrate this birthday, as a day to realize how much I have matured. Just because I am a little bit more mature doesn't mean I will be any less easy on the Bastards of the world though. That's a promise.

Going hard since 1993

Cockroach Backpack Controversy Or How Bleeding Hearts Want To Set Science Back.

 So I woke up to one of my computer science major friends, posting about something called a "Cockroach Backpack", going on about how people are saying it's controversial, and how people were overreacting. After clicking the link then discovering the disappointing fact that the "Cockroach Backpack" was not a backpack made of live cockroaches, I did discover it was an impulse manipulating device you place on the back of a cockroach and control with a phone app. That is possibly the coolest thing ever. Cockroaches are gross, overpopulated (thanks to our filth and expansion), and overall some of the most interesting creatures to do research on.
 What's the problem here? Well, like everything awesome, the bleeding hearts of the world have some ridiculous ethical problem with it. The company that makes the device wants to target it toward science projects and as a teaching aide, with Animal Behavior Scientist Jonathan Balcombe to being quoted as saying,
"If it was discovered that a teacher was having students use magnifying glasses to burn ants and then look at their tissue, how would people react?"

 The difference between playing around with electrical impulse control and burning ants with a magnifying glass is, burning ants with a magnifying glass is entirely pointless. It would be like comparing boiling noodles on a stove, to using babies as fuel for cars, one has a reason while the other doesn't. I know as a kid in school I loved science and being able to see how something works like the electrical impulses on a body would have been beyond cool!
 

 To anyone saying the science has no use I do have to point out that electrical impulse technology has successfully been used to stimulate nerve damaged limbs, heal brain damage from Alzheimer's, and to restart hearts. Getting kids interested in this stuff could cause one of this generation to be the doctor or scientist who figures out how to get a quadriplegic to walk again. The science has a solid and fundamental use, plus a cool factor kids will be drawn to.
Now there are a certain group of people who I don't even know if I should acknowledge just, because they are that insane, though I think I have to. There are the people who seriously think this will lead to "Mind control". These people are also the ones who probably thought that the CERN Hadron Collider was going to end the world, or that nuclear discoveries are bad because they can be turned into weapons. If we fear all scientific advancement, because something can be used in a bad way, we'll never advance as a species. Especially when something can do so much good, with such a harmless impact.

Links:
To buy or learn more about the "RoboRoach": https://backyardbrains.com/products/roboroach
To read the original BBC article I read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24455141

Things I Want

I want the scumbag politicians, holding their better than you noses up in the air, out of power. I want The police that hassle me and my friends, to give up their badges. I want everyone under the age of 25 to become educated about the world and learn to fight for what they believe in. I want more all ages, under $10 a ticket venues. I want to not worry about money I want every bank to collapse and prove they are just big enough to fail. I want this president and all future and past president impeached. I want an end of sexism, racism, ageism, and any other negative "isms". I want people to start doing what they are saying and to shut up about what they are going to do.
I want a lot of things I hope you do to. This world isn't perfect, but we can make it work if we made steps toward making our wants realities. That's all I have to say tonight...bummer right?