How to make a free market a tool of oppression

I just got notice that my landlord is raising my rent by $500 (after a $130 increase just this February, and an increase every year since my lease expired and he refused to renew it). Interestingly, this is above market value for what the building offers. This is an increase well in excess of 25%. [...]

Criticism, hostility and non-support: three different animals

If you find yourself in agreement with a dominant belief – the most popular religion in your culture, a love of the favored local sports team, or the belief that life is mostly neat and people are mostly good-hearted – you may occasionally have trouble distinguishing someone who doesn’t lick your butt in agreement from [...]

Fascism in America

I recently described compulsory voting as “fascist” to a friend the other day, which got me thinking about the term and wondering just how well I understand it. I looked it up on Wikipedia and found that Mussolini used it to describe putting the state ahead of the individual to such a degree that any [...]

For being effective, you are sentenced to…

When I was a teenage girl who wasn’t shy about pointing out the advantages I didn’t have, I was surrounded by teenage boys who weren’t shy about telling me, “Stop whining and just do something about it.” I took their advice. I studied the people who had the social standing I wanted, which in my [...]

On being a white ally

This is a must read thread. It’s unfortunately closed down now, but the comments alone gave me immense amounts of ideas to think about.

Victim blaming and the power hierarchy

You go to a doctor, and she or he treats you like you’re a disgusting waste of time because you should’ve known that rash you have that looks exactly like eczema was actually some obscure parasite from the Bolivian jungle (where you’ve never been). Your car’s broken into, and even though you locked it and [...]

The entitlement of the passive-aggressive do-gooder

“Won’t somebody please think of the children???” – The preacher’s wife on the Simpsons I recently made the mistake of engaging in a business transaction with a Christian who believes that, because s/he is a Christian everything s/he does is unquestionably the Lord’s work, s/he cannot possibly have done me wrong. It’s not the first [...]

Santa Claus: the ultimate Reagan-Thatcherite

What happens in your mind when you’re a small child and you notice that Santa brought the rich kids much nicer stuff than he brought the poor kids? I’ve always wondered about this. (I don’t know because I was never taught to believe in Santa.) It seems to me there’s a potential for the whole [...]

You just need to love God better

Purtek’s recent post at Feminism @ The Hathor Legacy got me thinking about something I’ve wanted to say for a while, but wasn’t sure how. I’m about to talk about a particularly hurtful privilege many Christians in my culture choose to engage in. Let me be clear: many Christians do not engage in this privilege [...]

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