Lemmings
From William S. Burroughs' "The Electronic Revolution," 1970. Screenshot to preserve the weird formatting, or lack thereof. The quote mocks the "auditing" technique of Scientology which Burroughs had joined for a while in the 1960s.
More dips from the collection "Holy Crap Someone Printed This:"
- If your trick no work you better run.
- Its good for young and old man and beast and is known as SEX.
- Fictional dailies retroactively cancelled the San Francisco earthquake and Halifax explosion as journalistic hoaxes, and doubt released from the skin law extendible and ravenous, consumed all the facts of history.
- The priests postulated and set up a hermetic universe of which they were the axiomatic controllers. In so doing they became Gods who controlled the known universe of the workers. They became Fear and Pain, Death and Time.
To play devil's advocate, I think that the US is extraordinarily stable. So far, two halves of the population pitted against each other in a defective democracy, what a fantastic situation for any ruler. Plus, people have been mollified enough with, in global comparison, very high wages as to not resort to armed resistance.
If that system collapses, a non-democratic oligarchy might have its day. But doesn't that simply mean replacing an, on its surface, voluntary participation in the reproduction of capital with a completely compulsory one? That, and overt persecution of minorities.
Sure, it will suck for almost everybody, and the new rulers might just close the borders to let no-one escape. And there will be blood, at home and abroad. But the system itself, perverted as it may seem, can survive this way for generations, if not centuries. Indentured servitude, anyone?
For a maybe more optimistic view of the future, though, here's what Thucydides wrote in "The Peloponnesian War":
But this was merely their political cry; most of them being driven by private ambition into the line of conduct so surely fatal to oligarchies that arise out of democracies. For all at once pretend to be not only equals but each the chief and master of his fellows; while under a democracy a disappointed candidate accepts his defeat more easily, because he has not the humiliation of being beaten by his equals. But what most clearly encouraged the malcontents was the power of Alcibiades at Samos, and their own disbelief in the stability of the oligarchy...
Good if you want to cross bows.
malcolm-x-by-any-means-necessary.jpg
The waiting room. I hate when they make you wait in the room. 'Cause it says "Waiting Room." There's no chance of not waiting. 'Cause they call it the waiting room, they're gonna use it. They've got it. It's all set up for you to wait.
- Famous quote from the Fediverse's favorite frenemy entertainer, I guess.
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Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
(Herman Melville, Moby Dick)
It is really some of his better work, and that's saying something since u/lukmly013 has never created a single meme that is compromised, shameful, made for simply pragmatic reasons, or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular due to his Wagnerian treatment of subjects. I read a quote somewhere where, ironically, he once said he considers his prose and poetry writings as having more enduring value than his memes.
Bingo. Trump already started playing with his corporate finger puppets, emboldening some, threatening others.
Same reason Zuckerberg, surely the expert on the matter, had this weird rambling about "masculine energy" very recently. What a Trumpian phrase.
Yeah, we must be careful as to not muddle the waters here. Employees want 32 hour weeks while bosses are trying to give them 40 hour weeks, shoehorned into four days, instead, to "improve efficiency." These two are not the same.
I had to sit through multi-day workshops that could have been a one-liner.
Call my name through the cream then.
Just a few days ago, someone I know had to be hospitalized because of somehow slipping and smashing badly into their desk while doing normal, boring office work. From how it was described to me, I cannot help thinking sex was somehow involved, like receiving or giving oral sex from under the table maybe.
EDIT: Typing this, I was reminded of a guy who got smacked in the back of his head. Got X-rayed, everything looked normal. They kept him in the hospital for observation, though. X-ray again after an hour, a huge hematoma had evolved under his skin, pressing on the upper spine. They immediately drained it. Otherwise, it would have killed him very quickly.
Алла, я в бар
"Alla [common female first name], I'll be at the bar." That's an apocryphal practical joke which I heard from a Russian. It becomes clearer once you start shouting "Alla yav bar!" in an airport.
One million trees equals two double burgers with cheese
Aaah, the 90s were so optimistic.
Be kind, rewind, though.