2025-09-13 02:22:00
I'm hot because of bigots saying trans people don't exist, that black women "stole" their positions from whites, because racial profiling is now legal, because our President blatantly and repeatedly violates the constitution, because of people saying that 10 year old rape victims should be forced to give birth, and so much more.
So when I hear that "we" need to lower the temperature, I hear victim blaming. I hear that we should stop trying to protect people. I hear that we should let the white supremacists win. No. YOU need to STEP UP, STAND UP, and get on the right side of history.
The White Supremacists need to back down, and their supporters need to turn against them.
That is how we lower the temperature, not by calming down but by fixing the problem.
Also Read: Mixed feelings about charlie kirk's death
2025-09-12 10:41:00
Bear with me.
I think Charlie Kirk was bad, harmful, and indirectly responsible for suffering and death. I think it's good that he is no longer preaching his white supremacist message. I think it's good that he is no longer advocating against trans existence. I think it is good that he is no longer encouraging harassment of women of color.
I don't think it's good that he's dead. I don't think it's good that somebody committed murder. I don't think it's good that his family suffered a loss or that the people at the event that day likely suffered trauma.
Is the good WORTH the bad? I don't know.
I wish the good could have come without the bad, without the violence.
I'm not happy about his death.
But I'm happy he's done promoting white supremacy. Both those feelings are in me, and it is ... unsettling.
On Charlie Kirk | Sam Schutte’s Blog
This post is a good read, worth hearing, worth considering.
But I want to challenge a message carried throughout it.
he never advocated for violence
...
But - do we want to live in a country where the bold, the opinionated and those who think differently than us must risk their lives to do so? I think not.
He did advocate for violence. Advocating for trans people's non-existence is advocating for genocide. Advocating for 10 year old rape victims to give birth is advocating for violence. Advocating for Jim Crow laws - "[Black People] were actually better in the 1940s" - is advocating for violence.
"Submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge.” This is advocating for violence.
Sam, you raise good points that are worth considering, but you also whitewash his legacy. He didn't just "think differently than us". He advocated for deadly policies and a dictator who now runs our country. He was the figurehead of a white supremacist organization. Not a bold thinker. A White Supremacist.
Also Read: on Lowering The Temperature
2025-09-10 11:11:00
Currently (in the U.S.), you can incorporate an organization as a Not-For-Profit, a Corporation, an LLC, or one of a few other types of private for-profit corporations (specifics depend on the state).
If you incorporate, your bylaws dictate the governing structure, so worker-owned companies can be created and some do exist.
But my state has no formal legal apparatus for forming a worker-owned company or a community owned company, and I want one.
I want the official legal framework, along with administrative support (which private businesses and non-profits have). Then once some worker-owned and community-owned companies form, the government can give grants and contracts to these companies, which could encourage the growth of democratically-owned businesses.
It doesn't require tearing down capitalism, forcing any businesses to close or change their governing structure, and it isn't state-owned either. It just creates a new option that can be freely chosen by those seeking to start businesses.
I would support some city-owned and state-owned businesses (but not typically monopolies, except for some utilities like water or energy delivery, meaning city & state-owned firms would have to compete on the market), but that is another topic entirely.
Myy goal is to bring forward more socialism (as-in democratically-owned means of production), but in a practical and approachable way. If socializing goes well over the next decade or two, we could consider moving toward more heavy-handed socialization, but I think it's not necessary or realistic to jump to that right away. And hell, if socializing goes badly, we might reconsider.
2025-09-09 13:22:00
Like one voice is in charge.
Normally there's the chatter, the fighting for my attention. I don't know what to do because there's a thousand things all going at once. Some are on-task and some are not.
I second-guess and third-guess and fourth.
Every step is a battle between 4 different versions of myself.
But tonight it's quiet in my head.
I can hear them, I can feel them, vying for my attention.
Did you remember this? Remember to be guilty about that.
But tonight they are settled, calm, only asking not demanding.
Tonight it's quiet in my head.
They're still distracting, still pulling, and I know it won't last.
But I savor these moments where it's quiet in my head.
2025-09-09 01:50:00
When I see news about the economy being awful or how his policies are hurting working people, a part of me rejoices, for the hope that his economic failures will get people to vote against the Nazis.
And why isn't it enough that they're White Supremacists? It should be enough. Even if his economic policy were sound, we still shouldn't elect a nazi. Like come the fuck on.
But I can't count on people to vote against republicans for being nazis. My country, unfortunately, has an overwhelming history of white surpremacy and a lot of that still runs through our culture today. It's getting better in a lot of ways, but ... it's just like people don't seem to care? So what he's a nazi, stocks went up last time he was in office.
So yeah. I want him to be an abject failure so that we can kick out the nazis. I don't like that people have to be hurt in the process. But if his economy is successful, then Republicans will get to continue going after women and brown people and queer people ... fuck and poor working whites, too. He doesn't give a shit about poor working whites either, except to capture their votes by turning them against the working people of color and queers.
I wish my country were better than this.
2025-09-08 10:36:00
After reading Holly and End of Watch, I thought I was done with Stephen King. I don't know, I was just tired of him, just didn't have that itch to read him anymore.
I have since read Octavia Butler and N.K. Jemisin and am reading another N.K. Jemisin book now (Broken Kingdoms, book 2 of The Inheritance Trilogy). (I love her, read the The Fifth Season)
Anyway, my best friend loves dreamcatcher, her favorite book. So I borrowed her copy (it smells SO GOOD. It's like old paper + a hint of a scent of incense. I smell every book I read and all the newer ones just smell like glue and chemicals and its kind of sad. Old books usually smell so much better because of the old paper smell, even if the glue smell is still there.)
Dreamcatcher has an entirely different narrator than Holly or End Of Watch, for which I was grateful. Granted, Dreamcatcher is like 2001 and Holly is fairly recent. Plus Dreamcatcher is spooky scifi stuff and Holly is private investigator serial killer stuff.
By the time I was done with Dreamcatcher, I was ... I was sad it was over. I could have just kept on reading and reading. It was like 900 pages and I coulda gone for more.
I'm not sure what to say about the book itself. I don't like to write down spoilers, even though I suspect nobody is reading this. (Plus I could give a spoiler warning if I were really worried about it.)
Idk. It's great. blah blah blah.
