“How about instead of buying gifts we donate to charity for Christmas”
I’m tired of this Christmas trope where in order to recognize and celebrate the religious, family, or charitable side of Christmas it means you also have to reject the commercial, capitalist side. Christmas is all of those things and all of those things are good.
You know what’s just as helpful as giving some cash to a charity…supporting businesses so people can earn a living. A lot of places especially small businesses don’t record profits until the Christmas season, which is where the term black friday comes from. It’s the first time of the year they make money. Everyone wins when you buy gifts. The person getting the gift, the person giving the gift, the store it was bought from and the people who work there.
It also annoys me when I see this trope in media where people are murdering each other for Christmas gifts. I go to sales at toy stores all the time around Christmas and it’s fine. The amount of Christmas shopping violence is comparable to the amount of shopping violence year round, it’s just spotlighted to make some anti-commercial message about Christmas. Fake news.
It’s so annoying that there’s so much commercialized Christmas content that’s all about railing against the commercialism of Christmas. Fuck off yes I know it’s about Jesus…I know it’s about family and I know charity is important…but also capitalism is great, presents are awesome, tree’s lights and decorations are fun. Take your commie horseshit to another holiday. So yeah donate to charity if you’ve vetted the charity a lot, but then also celebrate the rest of Christmas too, it’s not one or the other.
Just a thought that popped into my head: If you want the best mix of charity and gift giving, just buy gifts that are handmade from small businesses and independent sellers on the internet. Do some shopping on etsy and you’ll be putting money in the pocket of someone who deserves it, and you’ll also have a unique gift that isn’t just some mass produced chinese sweatshop garbage.
Lots of charities are crap (hence why you need to vet them, which shouldn’t even be a problem, but it is) and being that pretentious prick who whines about commercialism during Christmas is even worse than being the mouthy vegan at the family Thanksgiving table. If you really want to be a good person, go and serve your community directly. Help the people in your neighborhood instead of reaching for the instant gratification of throwing a couple bucks at a giant multinational charity organization. Donate a few hundred dollars worth of pet food to the local animal shelters. Distribute winter coats to homeless folks. Do some work with meals on wheels. Or don’t and just enjoy the holiday with your loved ones.
I honestly don’t know how to tell you these shocking facts but fucked up things in stories were not invented by AO3
I literally saw that someone replied to a post that talked about content in public libraries saying that that content should be regulated as well and Im just like when your statement can’t be distinguished from something a Southern Baptist pastor would say you really need to take a hard look at what kind of belief system you’ve let yourself fall into.
When fiction deals with difficult material (as it almost inevitably will) and it’s available for public consumption, you have the choice to ban anything controversial or teach people from a young age how to analyse and interpret literature and media. Only the second option builds valuable thinking skills and is actually possible.
On the 23rd of August 2018, this memorial was officially opened. As you can tell by the name, it was built to commemorate those 22,000+ civilians (as well as serving officers) who died in an unknown place/time after the Soviet Union (SU) occupied our country.
Whether they were arrested and killed for being a threat to the new regime, deported to various prison camps across the SU territory or they didn’t make it through the long, treacherous journey in a cramped up train wagon (meant for animals), which took them away from their homeland, they never came back and their relatives have no idea when or where they died…
Well, now the victims’ friends and family have a place to go and commemorate them. I visited this memorial 2 days after it was opened to the public and will now share some photos I took to show you what it looks like.
This is the entrance from the outside, which is surrounded by two tall black walls. On the inside of these walls are the 22,000+ victims’ names, inscribed on plaques. If you enter it, you are going on the Journey.
The Journey through these walls symbolises the merciless power of the totalitarian system. It’s supposed to make you feel.. how should I say this?.. Oppressed. You’re surrounded, but you sort of want to break free from this tight space, right? Well, the thing is you can’t, because your freedom has been taken away from you. You can’t break free, not until you come to the end of the Journey. The names on either side of you remind you that not everyone survived this ordeal.
Once you finish the Journey, you reach the Home Garden. I quote: “The Home Garden is a place where dreams, memories and the yearning for home are intertwined. Apple trees and honeybees are the symbols of the Home Garden.” (X)
When you move closer to the wall, you can see the honeybees spread across it in bigger or smaller bunches, trying to protect each other. This idea came from a poem entitled “Ta lendab mesipuu poole”, written by an Estonian poet, Juhan Liiv. It’s also been made into a song, which is usually sung during our annual Song Festivals.
The lyrics have a very deep meaning behind them (which is why a lot of the singers cry when they sing this). In a literal meaning, it talks about how a family of bees works hard and some of the workers may die while on duty. But when their home (the honeycomb) is in danger, they hurry back to protect it without hesitation, not caring whether they die in the process or not.
As I interpret/see it, this actually represents Estonians and our love for our country. How we work together through better or worse so we could all live in peace. And when our homeland is being attacked, we come together and defend it with our lives.
Once you walk past the honeybees and up the stairs, you reach a long row of information texts and location stones (these reminded me of coffins) running along the wall. They contain detailed facts about what happened during those 50 years of communist terror, the stones name the locations where deportees/prisoners were taken/died (along with a map of the SU, showing the locations). I took pictures of every board, but you can all read the texts here.
At the beginning, I mentioned that there’s a part of the memorial that commemorates the serving officers who were murdered. Now we reach the final part, and this is what it looks like: bullet holes on the side of the wall. If you peek inside, you will see that most of them contain an old photograph of an officer, who was among the victims.
To me, this memorial also stands as a reminder of why Estonians are on their toes when it concerns our eastern neighbour, Russia, whose “public secret” is that they wish to restore their former glory (i.e. they wish to reconquer Eastern Europe and regain more power in this region). Have you heard what happened to Georgia in 2008? Do you know what’s been going in Eastern Ukraine since 2014?
This is why I hope to live long enough to see the day when Russia apologizes and takes responsibility for its war crimes. These are the reasons why we must never forget – for if we do, we will let history repeat itself.
In conclusion, I’ve read many more historical posts about how/why nazism is bad on this site, but rarely (if at all) have I come across a similar post about communism. The stories that smaller cultures/people/nations have to share about their history aren’t as “popular” or don’t get the attention they deserve. Yet it’s the minorities who we should stand up for and protect.
Please, if you think that others should know more about the history of my people, of my country, then I urge you to reblog this. This will not look ugly on your blog. Thank you for reading (and sharing)!
Of course it’s going to destroy the concept of the starving artist, they are either going to be making propaganda or dead
Have fun in the gulags, all my favorite artists. :c
DESTROYING CAPITALISM WILL DESTROY THE ARTIST
Under communism, everyone must contribute something defined by the government to be of sufficient value, usually producing a specific product assigned to them by the government. Failure to do so results in imprisonment at best.
Under anarchy, those who spend their time and resources on non-survival pursuits will be subjugated or destroyed by more violent or ambitious members of the population.
The survival of the artist requires sufficient governmental structure and police presence for someone with no “practical” skills to remain safe, sufficient individual freedom for a person to choose their own, unconventional path rather than being defined by others, and sufficient economic power to be possessed by individuals that value can be given to something which has no practical use simply because it interests or entertains other individuals.
REMINDER THAT THE ONLY ARTISTS THAT FLOURISHED IN THE SOVIET UNION ARE FUCKING STATE-PROPAGANDA PAINTERS, YOU ABSOLUTE MONGRELS.
Reminder that Capitalism enables artists to MONETIZE their work and we shouldn’t shame artists for selling shit.
PRODUCE VALUE. MAKE MONEY. THAT IS THE WAY. Thanks to the digital age, literally anyone can find a way to make money. We’re living in a fucking golden age.
Pour one out for all the “artists” who died in the parallel universe where communism took over. They were sent to the gulags after they found out that performance art where they shit on stage and menstrual blood self portraits were deemed worthless by their Communist government. Pray for all the artists who survive in the same parallel universe by painting countless propaganda posters for the government to create the illusion of prosperity and progress.
As a library worker, there’s something I want to say to you.
You do not have to apologize for the books you choose to read.
At all. To anyone. You owe nobody any explanations; you need no excuse or “good reason” to be reading the book.
You do not have to be ashamed for wanting to read “bad” books. You wanna read Twilight? We got Twilight. Need a banal, cookie-cutter-plot mystery or thriller?Those are always fun. Our regulars check them out by the towering stack. Ask Betty for recommendations; she’s read them all. 50 Shades of Oh Fucking No? We’ve got it, we even got it in large print. Have fun. Check out the rest of our porn too. Oh, and the sex manuals are a MUST if you want to “experiment” yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask; they’re here for a reason.
Want to read a book written by a huge asshole everyone hates and agree was a monster? Yeah, we have those. No, we don’t think you’re an asshole for wanting to know what was actually written in there, or judging things for yourself.
You are not too old for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Babysitter’s Club, or Captain Underpants. You are not too young for Sherlock Holmes. There’s nothing wrong with a boy reading The Princess Academy or Sweet Valley High. There’s nothing wrong with a girl being into The Hardy Boys or Artemis Fowl instead.
You do not have to pull the shame face and offer me an excuse when you check out your books. I don’t care if I got so angry at that book I threw it against a wall when I read it: you have the right to read it, and enjoy it if it’s enjoyable for you. THAT’S WHY THE LIBRARY HAS IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. If we only stocked pure, unproblematic literature everyone approved of, by authors of unquestionable virtue, we wouldn’t have any books at all. Or music. Or movies. It would be utterly fucking boring. And it certainly wouldn’t be a library.
I remember reading somewhere that in Iceland, only 2-3 babies with Down Syndrome are born each year. The rest are aborted, just because they have Down Syndrome. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of. I also heard of a mother whose doctor detected DS in her baby and SUGGESTED an abortion over anything else. Obviously, she replied “Heck no!” She said in an interview that she was absolutely mortified that her doctor even suggested that.
I also watched a documentary about parents with children who have severe cerebral palsy. All of the comments said “Thier bodies are just shells. They don’t deserve to live.”
Pre natal scans for Autism are being pushed for. And that most likely means more abortions to come.
This is the world we live in. People literally think that we don’t deserve to live just because we have an extra chromosome, or our brains work differently, or we can’t move our muscles. This is the world that ableist people have built, and pride themselves for “improving humanity.” But they’re not improving humanity. If anything, they’ve proved they’re inhumanity to the world by spouting such nonsense. By saying we don’t deserve to live. By supporting and even PERFORMING eugenics.
If you’re reading this, please know that you deserve to live. Your disability makes you wonderful and unique, and the world is a better place because you’re here. Don’t listen to the ableists. They’re totally and completely wrong.
For the record, she actually abandoned the movement BEFORE they all got whooping cough, but abandoned it too late. There’d been a breakout of measles in her area that caused her to reassess, and she and her doctor had already drafted and started a catch-up vaccination schedule, but her kids caught whooping cough just before it could be started. Then she wrote a blog post for The Scientific Parent explaining how she and her husband had come to wrong decisions in the first place, how they changed their mind, the consequences they suffered as a result, and asking other parents to please vaccinate their kids. And now she’s an activist for destroying the misinformation of anti-vaxxers, and reaching out to anti-vaxxers because she’s understands their fears but knows their kids deserve better.
She was trying to the best for her kids and just didn’t know how to interpret the validity of information or its sources, an actual skill that can be actually difficult and that is under-taught and a necessary first step to being able to trust vaccination research, so chose no action over taking an action she wasn’t sure of. She kept looking into it with family and friends and even eventually came to the right conclusion before her kids became sick, but it was still too late.
Honestly it was pretty brave of her to publicly admit she was wrong. She could have just quietly vaccinated her kids and not become a national news story, but instead she spoke out, even saying “I’m writing this from quarantine, the irony of which isn’t lost on me.” and also “I am not looking forward to any gloating or shame as this ‘defection’ from the antivaxx camp goes public, but, this isn’t a popularity contest. Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear. I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk.”
She understood the consequences and still put herself and her story out there.
You know what, it does take a big person to admit they were wrong so publicly and work to undo the harm. I believe I made fun of her in the past, but timemachineyeah changed my mind.
XI's Archived Tumblr Blog 