Selling my brains

The more observant of my readers will see a new little slot in my sidebar, advertising my music-selling website.

I currently have 3 packages, each comprising three tracks, grouped according to the style of music. I also have decided to sell my services as a composer, to create mp3 tracks specially composed for the customer, for whatever purpose they might want it (for an additional fee, I'll throw in a full score so they can get live musicians to perform their piece for them).

The three packages are:

Folk Music

Tracks included: Cold Morning Wakes, Queen of the Midnight Isles, Crawley Slipper

Trance & Chillout

Tracks included: Everscene, Via Psyche, Challenger2

Indie (LO-FI recordings)

Tracks included: Know No Now, To Live On, 90 Degrees of Reality

People who followed the link to my failed entry into the UnSignedAct competition run by Channel 4 last year, will already have heard the recordings on the Indie package, except that the mix of Know No Now is the full version rather than the single guitar/vox version used for the competition entry.

The price per track is cheaper than iTunes, so you're getting a bargain!

When I have learnt some proper coding so I can set up passwords and downloads and stuff like that, it'll be even better!

Depression and "Bodily Integrity"

It looks like I'm on a "depression" theme this week, I have another post about it lined up, and possibly another on top of that if I get through Get it Done When You're Depressed quickly.

Go Go Jo Jo of "and we've replaced statements like 'It's all good' w/ revolutionary cries" writes a piece called, Black Feminism and Bodily Integrity. (NB, I found this via the Tell It WOC Speak blog carnival, which looks like it has lots of great links in it - go check it out!)

Obviously from the title, that's not a post about depression. It's about a concept called bodily integrity. The majority of the post, naturally, focuses on what that means for a WoC in a racist, sexist society. But it starts with a definition of what the term "bodily integrity" means to the author:

To me, one of the cornerstones of any kind of feminism is the issue of bodily integrity. I define bodily integrity as the ownership of one's own body and ability to determine what happens to it, how it happens, and even why it happens.

That was instantly problematic for me as a sufferer of depression (yes, I suffer - it may be un-PC to use that term to describe people with mental health problems, but dammit, yes, I suffer, and will say so). Amber Rhea writes of depression, "[It] makes you feel like someone other than yourself. Your body has betrayed you and there’s nothing you can do to make it stop, even though logically you might know what’s happening." Caroline writes, "...you’re consumed by it. That’s the fucking point. And you can’t fucking help it." (We'll come back to Caroline's post again in a minute).

When you have depression, you don't have bodily integrity like Go Go Jo Jo talks about. And depression is hardly the most dramatic illness of which that can be said. I don't want to talk about any other illnesses, because - never been there, not my place to interpret others' experiences for them (I'll flag up ME as one example I've seen first-hand in another person). Depression is what I know, and where I've been.

"ability to determine what happens to it"

I don't got that. When depression strikes, sometimes all the determination in the world isn't enough to determine what I'm going to do with my body that day. Depression robs me of that. Certainly, it limits the options, limits what I can or can't do.

"how it happens"

Again, you're a lucky depressive if you have a say in how stuff happens in your own body when you're depressed. The best say we get in how it happens is to take the medication that lets us take back some semblance of the bodily integrity of which it robs us. Choices? Determination? Not so much.

"and even why it happens."

We know why it happens. It's something to do with little chemicals in the brain getting all out of key and going nuts or not doing enough. No fucking choice in that department. We get to do what we can to correct the imbalance by taking tablets, and using talk therapy as much as possible, but it doesn't matter how much you do, it's always influencing everything, your only option is to battle through as best you can until it clears up again. And then prepare for when it comes back.

On top of that, there's the social reactions that Caroline in particular discussed in her post. This, I guess, is closer to the issues that Go Go Jo Jo was discussing in her post, but again, this is not about colour (cos that's not the life I've lived) it's about depression (which I have).

Caroline writes:

...the sanctimonious bullshit people, “friends” (oooh, scare quotes!), spew out like they have a fucking clue… “You need to get a grip”, “pull yourself together” (that old chestnut), “you need a routine”, “get a job, get a hobby…” Get something that shapes your life, something other than the thing that consumes you.

...

The resentment of others is a natural response to their interfering and the opinions. It’s like some people take the opportunity to assert their superiority, and it’s like people think they know you, own you, have a right to express their worthless bloody opinions. Each depression is the same, apparently. All one great big black tidal wave, one massive barking black dog, one [insert your euphemism here].

...

Some people still think it’s perfectly reasonable to attempt to take control of my life “for my own good” and I have to battle so much against this.

...

Everyone has an opinion, and everyone assumes they have a right to express it. Everyone thinks they know because they’ve once been sad. Everyone has the solution.

No respect for bodily integrity for people with depression. Now, at the extreme end, I guess there's a case for saying that a suicidally depressive person needs to be restrained, because it is a bad choice for hir to make, but the sense of entitlement to govern our lives and assumption that they know best about our lives, there is no justification for that. Now, for some, having someone there to be supportive and determined on our behalf is a good thing (that's what my other post is going to be about) but there's a key thing about that, which is that we get to choose who that person is - or be that person ourselves (that's a theme that's developing in Get It Done When You're Depressed). Just because we're depressed and we've told you about it, doesn't mean we want you to be that person!

Obviously, we can do something about the social denial of bodily integrity experienced by people with mental health problems (incidentally, in a comment here I abbreviated "people with mental health problems" to PwM, by analogy to PoC, PwD, etc - I know some people like the term "neuro-nontypical, too).

But the effects of depression as an illness can only be mitigated, not erased entirely. If bodily integrity is as defined in Go Go Jo Jo's post, then it's a right that we just don't enjoy to the fullest extent; and what's more, that others with different illnesses have to a much lesser extent.

Which brings me back to my inital statement that as someone who suffers the efefcts of depression, I found that definition problematic.

Depression

Amber Rhea, Penny Red and Caroline "Uncool" have all written exceptional posts about depression and what it's like, and some of the issues that the rest of the world has with it. In addition, there are some excellent comments by people such as Jane Brazen at Amber's post, or Natalia Antonova and Aspasia on Caroline's post. (It's probably worth avoiding the arseholes who commented on Penny's post, some of whom were - to say the least - very unsupportive!)

I'm currently reading through How to Get it Done When You're Depressed, by Julie A. Fast and John D. Preston, Psy.D., ABPP . The subtitle is "50 Strategies for Keeping Your Life on Track", and it's written from Ms Fast's personal experiences suffering from depression. I posted about it in December when my mother sent me a clipping from a magazine about it. I haven't got very far with it yet but already a lot of the problems that depression causes, that Ms Fast writes about are deeply familiar to me, and some of the suggestions for techniques to handle them are familiar as things that I have learned through experience to employ.

Depression has been a part of my life at least since I was a teenager, although I didn't know it at the time. I mean - feeling miserable, writing lots of angsty poems, listening to gloomy music, etc - that's just what teen angst is all about, isn't it? It's just what teenagers do, right? And of course, if you've been there, then there's always a subtext from adults around you of, "Just wait until you're older, and you have real problems to deal with, kiddo!" (Or, as Simpsons bluesman "Bleeding Gums" Murphy put it, "You play pretty good for someone with no real problems!")

In many ways, for at least 10 years that was my relationship with depression. It was always just a lot of pretentious angst, like a stupid fucking teenager. There was always a narrative whereby I had no right to feel down about anything, and if I did then I was just being a self-indulgent prat. That was what society seemed to be telling me, it was what seemed to be the subtext for other people's reactons to me (when in fact, as Julie Fast points out, depression is a very selfish illness - they were reacting to the selfishness that it induces). Because I thought everything was normal, and that everyone else was obviously able to cope, and I wasn't, I felt like just a huge failure. So the end result of all that was that not only did I feel down, but I blamed myself for feeling down. Natalia mentions people snapping their fingers and saying 'snap out of it". Hell, I was doing that to myself!

And of course, what people miss - what I was missing - is that when you have depression, there is no "out of it" to snap to. One of the reviewers on the Amazon page for Get It Done When You're Depressed wrote that, "The author herself states in the introduction that she continues to suffer from chronic depression, and I can't help wondering if it's the very strategies in this book that are keeping her from recovery." The thing is, there is no recovery from depression in many cases: it's a chronic illness and you're stuck with it for life. That reviewer talks about having had stress-related depression, which is at once the same and not the same as chronic depression. We generally don't talk about recovering from bipolar disorder, because the "up" phase is generally recognised as a part of the illness cycle; unipolar depression is much the same, except that the stable periods don't look like part of a cycle. So there is no "out of it", there is only "get through it, and cope with it".

Another reason there is no "out of it" to snap to, is that depression isn't just a mood illness. It's a system-wide malfunction of the mental states, that results in extreme tiredness, general lethargy, self-hatred, indecision, loss of focus and many more really groovy things that just generally fuck you over. I sometimes talk about depression feeling like being in the wrong gear on a mountain bike: sometimes it's like the pedals are whirring round, and the bike hardly moves; other times, it's just so difficult to make the pedals turn that you can't get any sort of momentum into the drive wheel anyway. The "snap out of it" meme assumes that there is in fact a "right gear" to be in, and it's just a question of finding that gear through mental willpower. But depression is a broken mountain bike: they forgot to put in all the in-between gears where the right gear would be found.

When I finally got the diagnosis, as I mentioned on Amber Rhea's, I believed at that time that anti-depressants were mood-altering and personality-altering drugs and I didn't want any of it. But just the diagnosis itself helped. I mentioned earlier that I'd felt like everyone else was able to cope, and I couldn't, and somehow that it was my fault and I was a failure, or else, I was just imagining it all. Well, here finally was proof that it was real, I wasn't imaginng it, and there was a reason why I couldn't cope the way everyone else could. It wasn't just me being pathetic. If I was pathetic, then there wa snothing I could do about it. But here was something tangible, nameable, definite, distinct: something I could fight and say, "I will not let you win!"

That helped for a couple of years, but it's documented on this blog how I had a severe breakdown a couple of years ago, and I've been on the SSRI tablets since then; but they are just another part of my, "I will not let you win!" So are the techniques that are familiar from Ms Fast's book.

Both Amber and Caroline, and also some of their commenters, talk about how people assume they know what it's like because they've been miserable at times in their lives, or they believe in the power of mind over matter and a Positive Mental Attitude. People who do that drive me up the wall, too. I don't know how to get through to them that sometimes, it's a triumph and a mark of utmost strength just to get to the end of the day without dying by your own hand. How do you get through to people that it's not just about feeling down, gloomy, miserable? That it is a system-wide malfunction with genuine physical consequences? That sometimes the only way I keep going is the sheer grim determination to keep putting one foot in front of another, with no real hope in my heart that anything good will be at the end of the journey? As Amber, and Caroline, both point out, if you haven't been there, then you don't know what it is. Maybe, through reading the words of the erudite amongst those with depression (like Caroline, or Amber, or any of those authors Caroline referenced in her post), you can imagine it, catch a glimpse of it, but to know, you have to have been through the endless months, days, hours, that are depression.

Won't someone think of the (disabled) children?

Trinity at her LJ has a post about a BBC children's television presenter being targeted by parents because they claim her disability might frighten children.

This is happening in the UK, and it's happening now.

And it's wrapped up in some other pretty ugly shit, too. How else can you read this comment by one parent?

What is scary is the BBC's determination to show 'minorities' on CBeebies at every available opportunity.

How does that sound to folks out there? Any hints of, ooh, I don't know... racism?

What is scary to me is that there are people who see nothing wrong with expressing this kind of sentiment in public.

How about this?

One father said he would ban his daughter from watching the channel because he thought it would "give her nightmares".

Again, what would give me nightmares is that people actually think like that in the same country as me, and the same century as me. After all, it is on such ideas as this that arguments for eugenics can be built. I will leave others to follow the slippery slope fallacy to the Godwin's Law conclusion, but suffice to say I do not find eugenics a pretty concept even in its best form. And the idea expressed by that father do not lead to the best type of thinking about eugenics.

The presenter herself, Cerrie Burnell, said: “It can only be a good thing that parents are using me as a chance to talk disability with their children. It just goes to show how important it is to have positive disabled role models on CBeebies and television in general.”

So sharp I could cut myself...

This is just a collection of pictures of me posing with my new sword.

Unlike the swords in my earlier weapons post, this is a battle-ready sharpened high-carbon steel blade, a straight blade Japanese style, usually called a "Ninja" sword (I have no idea how accurate that association is). I haven't tested it (for obvious reasons) but I would imagine that this sword could do a lot of damage to the other swords in my collection! Make no mistake, when society crumbles, I will be armed and ready...! (Again, I ask myself why people think I'm "safe"...)

But in these pictures, I am just posing, martial arts movie-style (captions developed just now, on the spur of the moment - the poses were not planned for the comedy factor!):

"If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"

"Let the Light of Truth be your sword!"

"And a beautifully-timed pull shot, past midwicket for 4 runs"

"Wake me from my slumber, would you!? In my day, we cut little boys' heads orf for less!"

"Something tells me, this isn't a flute after all..."

"Alien or Predator or what the fuck, I don't care - I'll still chop your goolies** off!"

** "Goolies" is slang for testicles. Technically, since the Alien was female it wouldn't have had goolies, but the humour is in the futility of such a threat when faced with a monstrous space creature!

Nightmare

I am awake against my will, and have been for about 4 hours now (since 2am).

I want to bed at 11pm, thinking I would get a nice, long sleep. Instead, I had a horrible nightmare that has left me disturbed and agitated.

It wasn't the horror-movie-in-your-sleep type of nightmare, but rather it keyed into my deepest anxieties and insecurities - things that I think have been with me since my childhood and teenage years, and things that I know feed (and fed) on my depression whenever it gets bad.

I don't want to go into all the details - except one bit, that was a bit strange and didn't have a lot to do with the plot: a weird creepy naked dude sneaked into my parents' flat (they don't live in a flat, but hey) when they left the door open and were having sex; I followed, and got yelled at for being selfish bursting in on them when they wanted privacy. I explained about my anxieties and only then pointed to the naked guy - then the dream shifted and went back to the other plot.

The dream's main plot keyed in on abandonment, helplessness, and having no home or shelter. The homelessness issue is more recent, but the odd thing is, right now, these are not issues I need to worry about. Right now, all those bad things are fixed and certainly not going to happen to me. And yet, my unconscious mind churned them up and forced me awake and disturbed and... so I don't know why.

So I am sat here, disturbed, agitated, and lacking of sleep.

Grrrrr.

Haway the Gyrls!

Football Manager Live is a massively multiplayer online footie management sim produced by Sega.

I bought a copy quite cheaply on eBay, which came as-new, which meant I got a free 4-month subscription with it, which I thought was a great deal. Having played the offline version of Sega's Football manager, and enjoyed it a lot, I was very happy with it.

It allows you to design and set up your own team, with your own team name and logo.

Here's mine:
The Latin motto means "Freedom from gender frees the soul". Although I'm not sure if the translation program I used just didn't know the Latin for gender, or if gender is the same word in English as in Latin? Anyway, that's what it's supposed to mean.

In actual fact, most of the people I've chatted to on it have been pretty cool, but of course there's always one or two arseholes who think it's funny to insult those who don't conform. There's a "no abuse" policy on the server, so if anyone gets too annoying I can report them, but so far a good natured, "Charmed, I'm sure!" has worked okay to stop it before it goes too far.

Happy news

My sister has got engaged!

Her long-term boyfriend proposed to her at dawn yesterday on a dramatic hilltop as the sun came up. Apparently, he did the whole thing, down on one knee, and presented her with a diamond ring.

However, this did come as a bit of a surprise to me, because I remember all through her life from the very earliest days, she always insisted "I'm not getting married, and I'm not having children" (she's still adamant about that second part!) Although I knew her boyf was sweet like that, and I figured he might propose, I never really imagined that she'd say "yes", just because I always had that memory of her rejection of the concept of marriage.

It does, however, rather remind me that I am the oldest of three, and the only one still single (way to make it all about yourself there, Snowdrop!)

Ordinary Commies (Part 2): Mark's Day

Mark

Age: 45
Height 6'3"
Weight: 260lb


Mark wakes up at 5am and glances over at Colin, who is still sleeping. Colin is Mark's cuppie [from CUP, standing for Civil Union Partner – Civil Unions cover both hetero and homo unions, there is no separate legal status of "marriage"]. They have known one another since childhood, and theirs is a CU of convenience as much as anything: Mark, although he identifies as gay, is largely asexual; Colin is largely straight and boasts of having fathered 6 children by different women [The women each wanted to have a child, and chose Colin as the sex partner of choice to achieve this goal; they chose other men or women to be their partners in raising their children, or opted to be full-time carers, with the full support of society]. Mark recalls a couple of times when he has performed fellatio on Colin when Colin has been feeling sexually frustrated, but mostly theirs is a platonic union, formed because they always did everything together anyway, and had shared one another's most intimate secrets, it is a recognition that they are soulmates, even if they are not sexmates.

All this passes through Mark's thoughts as he eats breakfast and heads to the nearest car park. It is early, so the park should be full and he can have his choice of vehicle for his journey into town. He plugs his jPod [author's conceit – one better than an iPod… ] into the car stereo and listens to some of his favourite music as he drives into town. He is pleased to find that the car is nice and clean; not everyone follows the instruction to leave a car tidy and clean, either out of haste, or carelessness, or just absent-minded forgetfulness. Some people's community service time is spent on making sure that cars get cleaned regularly, but it's good manners, Mark thinks, not to force too much person-hours to be eaten up this way.

Of course, Mark has a particular thing about cleanliness in public spaces. He is often selected to perform garbage collection duties (and indeed, his early starts this week are due to being selected again for that work) on his community service hours, because of his strong physique, which makes him well suited to the work. When he was younger, he was approached by three different football codes [possibly American, Rugby and Aussie Rules] to train for high-level competition, but he preferred to spend his time in engineering, which is his true love. Although the admin teams do their best to have everyone get their first choice of community service, it doesn't always work out that way, so sometimes people have to take a turn at doing something they'd rather not do. But because everyone knows that the work is vital, and because they know it's usually only a short stint, it isn't much of a problem.

Leaving the car at a nearby car park, Mark walks his way the last block to the recycling/waste-processing depot. Very few people choose to spend their working time here, but every job in the place needs to be done, and there are those who gain a lot of satisfaction from their community service in making sure that recycling is as efficient as possible, and that non-reusable waste is disposed of as quickly and neatly as possible. Mark's experience in this area has enabled him in his working hours to produce new versions of several components in the process that have been duplicated across the globe and made recycling significantly more efficient.

The faces are familiar, and there is an easy camaraderie between Mark and the others on his route. Because of his experience, Mark has been selected as leader for this week, and as a result he is also expected to help out the new member of the team, a 21 year old called Gary, who actually has joined a sports team recently, and is expected to do very well in the coming season. Gary has responded well to advice on how to lift heavy objects ("that'll come in handy when I make tackles!" he quipped on his first day). Gary has, as is traditional since time immemorial, been a victim of some pranks and hazing, but has taken it all with good humour, and already got his own back even on one or two of his more careless tormentors. The two-hour tour goes by easily with conversation about all manner of idle topics, including the recent weather and Gary's team's chances in the season opener in two weeks' time. Gary heads straight off to training after finishing his morning of community service, while some of the crew go straight home to bed. Mark has always been an early riser, however, and as the clock ticks past 8:30am he is already at the lab catching up on his latest project. He has been waiting for some results from a test run by his colleagues elsewhere, which may make all the difference to his plans. He is pleased to see that the results have arrived by email overnight, and he spends most of the rest of the day studying them and incorporating them into the designs he was working on.

The last hour or so, however, he puts in some hard work on actually building the machinery that he helps to design. For him, a part of the enjoyment of his job is that he gets to see a design go from the page to the factory, and then into the real world, and everyone in the team has a hand in it at every step of the way. No one is confined to a single role, but everyone is an expert on the whole system. The business is run as a collective, because everyone is able to bring something to discussions on how best to direct their resources, and what working practices are best suited to their particular issues.

After a full 8-hour day, with a break at midday for lunch, Mark heads homewards. He doesn't bother to go to the car park, because lots of people come into work and leave their car parked on the street. Mark finds one that looks in reasonably good shape and hops in, turning the radio to the news programme to listen to what's been happening in the world and locally. He drives home as he hears of various events, some good, some bad, that have taken place. He pays close attention to those that will impact directly on his work or home life, and pays more attention again to the political news. There is a big debate going on, and Mark wants to know how the arguments are shaping up.

Colin arrives home a couple of hours after Mark, and after they share a dinner prepared by Mark, they head off to the pub to meet some of their friends and neighbours.

Alan, the barman, greets them as they enter, and asks, "Is it a conference tonight?"

Mark replies, "I think it might be, Alan – set us up on table 10, would you?"

As Mark and Colin take a seat and wait for a friend to turn up, Mark reflects on the qualities needed to be a good barman these days: not just the ability to serve customers and recognise when they might have had enough already, but also a huge amount of discretion, too. This is where democracy begins, after all, and the barman is responsible for making sure that it goes all the way up.

Colin breaks into Mark's reverie, by leaning across and pressing the mute button by Mark's seat: "Hey, how about a double-date with that pair?" Colin asks, indicating with his eyes a man and a woman who are sitting opposite. Mark chuckles, knowing that Colin is often teasing him about his low sex drive, and doesn't bother with the mute button as he replies, "dirty old man!"

Soon enough, Joey turns up. Mark doesn’t know whether Joey is male or female, and Joey doesn't seem to care; she says she prefers the feminine pronouns purely because she finds them more elegant than the various alternatives in common usage. Joey's costume never varies from her worn-out jeans and t-shirt and offers no clues either. As Joey takes a seat, the conference begins. It turns out that she had listened to the radio reports all day and was very angry about some of the remarks in the debate, and was determined to have her say. As the evening stretched onwards, and one or two other friends join them, the debate at the table is fuelled by alcohol ad passion in equal measures, and one or two ideas come up that hadn't been mentioned at all on the radio. The reason for the mics at the table is obvious now, and this is where democracy starts: in a pub debate between friends. Table 10 is also known as the Red Dragon North Street Local Collective, and in a couple of days' time, as long as Alan does his job assiduously, the ideas that are recorded from table 10 could end up being a part of the debate as it is reported on the local news.

The debate goes on rather longer than Mark would have wished, but he only realises this when he arrives home and sees that in 5 hours he has to be up and ready to go back out to collect the recycling and garbage. Colin arrives home a couple of hours after Mark has fallen asleep, and goes into the guest bedroom. He has company and doesn't want to disturb Mark.

Ordinary Commies (Part 1)

This post is a response to Amber Rhea's request for information about what we're for, when we're against capitalism. In particular, she poses the following questions:

What would a non-capitalist society/economy look like?

How would it function on a day-to-day basis?

What would life be like for the average person?

How would people be compensated?

How would personal property be handled?

What would the role of the state be? (because I know some anti-capitalists are also pretty anti-state, which to me seems to leave an impasse with an anarchist Utopia as the only logical conclusion.)

The following is not going to answer any of these completely, but will give some idea of where I'm coming from, an hoping that humanity is going to. Bearing in mind that I've written this between 3am and 4am, and not all the ideas or thoughts thrown to the wwwinds are complete or necessarily sensible, I hope that this gives food for thought, opens discussion further, and maybe clarifies what's going on.

*****

Before asking how we can meet the needs and wants of individuals in society, we have to determine what those might be. Some needs are universal and tangible, so that we can immediately say that everyone needs food, water, shelter and so on – the basic survival necessities. Other needs might be specific to different groups or individuals, and other needs might be less tangible, on an emotional or ‘spiritual’ level. One of Marx's chief points in writing Capital (and indeed, in his previous writings) was the way in which capitalism deprives humanity of the ability to express freely those more spiritual needs. His concept of alienation certainly included this idea.

In capitalist society, everyone works in order to stay alive. Whatever else may be gained by work, if one doesn't work then even the most basic of needs are threatened. Essentially, if we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, what Marx showed was that under capitalism, work became all about meeting the needs of safety and physiology; the other needs were relegated to "free time". Thus, a worker's interest and development is alienated from hir work. Marx argued that society could be ordered so that work was in accordance with the higher needs, and actually promoted directly the advancement to esteem and self-actualization.

Another way of looking at this is through the lens of Adam Smith, who observed that class can be defined by how long someone could expect to live if zie refused to work. The working class is that sector of society for whom the basic needs of food and shelter would quickly force them back to work. The Miners' Strike of 1984-5 was a truly epic industrial action, and in fact many of the miners were starving by the end of the strike, supported by allies in other industries who provided food and shelter for the strikers.

Effectively, Marx's communist society would be ordered so that the work people do gives them the best opportunity to fulfil themselves as human beings. Marx envisioned this involving people becoming their own experts in everything, and not specialising in anything. I think Marx may have been projecting his own polymath tendencies onto the rest of society when he wrote those few passages where he talks about this vision of communist society. However, I think we can turn to that other great philosopher, Richard P. Feynman, for an example of what the communist life might look like, according to this theory. Feynman had one central talent and career path, as a theoretical physicist and lecturer. Pursuing this was always his central work, but he also through his life became a Latin American drummer, an artist and many other side lines, each of which he pursued to the fullest extent of his capabilities. In our capitalist society, those might be regarded as hobbies, things apart from or distracting from one's main line of work, but in a communist society, it would be open for you to contribute to society as a whole, as a form of work, by doing any or all of those things. In so doing, you would also help to promote others' ability to achieve their own advancement towards "self-actualization".

Thus, the question of "how would people be compensated?" starts to fade away – work would literally be its own reward, in terms of esteem, and in terms of forging relationships in a much better way than capitalist work can (for instance, by seeing first-hand the results of your work in improving others' lives), and in terms of one's own creativity and freedom of expression.

Politically, there wouldn't be a "state" as such, because democracy would be completely devolved, with decisions being made and power being wielded at the lowest possible levels. In a way, if we consider Plato's Republic, with the "Philosopher-Kings", then that would also be a way of looking at a communist society – except that everyone would be a Philosopher, and everyone would be a King. Participation in democracy would not be a once-every-2-years affair, but would be almost daily, with the real chance of seeing one's own thoughts become developed into policy that spreads throughout society.

Marx himself was very reticent on the matter of how certain unpleasant-but-necessary tasks would be completed (when challenged on these matters, he usually retorted by suggesting that it would be the questioner and his ilk who would be given the job!). It seems clear that participation in society would be dependent upon being willing to "pitch in" with some of these jobs, in a way, the rest of one's work and leisure time is the payment or compensation for this relatively minor part of one's day. Banishment might be an appropriate punishment for someone who wasn't willing to play their art in keeping society running (just as a housemate who doesn't do their share of the household chores might be asked by hir housemates to find somewhere else to live).

The matter of distribution of wealth and resources is also tricky: while "from each as according to hir ability, to each as according to hir need" is a great principle, there is a huge logistical question of how to get provisions from those able to provide them, to those in need of them. Then there is the question of determining how much and when. Some form of administrative structure and accountancy will surely be needed to handle these matters, especially as there will always be a global level at which some of these distribution decisions need to be made (even if the vast majority of provisions are produced locally).

Assuming for the moment that the society is not facing a Malthusian catastrophe, and that supplies are ample, there is still a question of how to distribute the excess after the basic needs of security and physiology are met. I do not trust "means-testing", even as it might appear in a communist society, so this is a tricky issue. In academic research especially, where the potential benefits are impossible to know, how to prioritize one research project over another is always a difficult issue. While supplies may be plentiful, they will never be infinite, so it will never be possible to spend resources without looking at these questions. I suspect that peer review will still be the best way to assess academic matters in this respect; possibly a similar way of handling the distribution of other types of resources might be good, too (for example, with musical equipment, who gets first choice is decided by other musicians, on whatever grounds are relevant).

In terms of fair distribution of wealth, and the day-to-day expenditure by individuals of that wealth, I think that there is little alternative to some form of rationing scheme. However, we are used to seeing rationing in times of shortage, so the connotation that we have of rationing implying hardship need not apply to our plentiful communist society. The rationing level should be set sufficiently high that only an absolute glutton would ever reach it. If someone wanted to host a big party, then they might use up their ration allowance completely, but in that case, it would be the essence of cooperation and social interaction to invite some of the guests to use a portion of their ration allowance to help out (after all, "bring your own bottle" is a familiar concept, so why not use the same idea here?)

*****

In parts 2 and 3 (links when I've written them) I shall write a couple of fictional "day in the life" stories about Mark and Sandra: two inhabitants of a society that exemplifies one possible way the above description might look to an "ordinary commie".

Rage against the Medicine

THIS POST INCLUDES GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF DEATH - READERS OF A NERVOUS DISPOSITION, OR UNDER THE AGE OF 18, SHOULD NOT READ ANY FURTHER! PLEASE DO NOT READ ON IF YOU ARE EASILY DISTURBED, OR ARE LIKELY TO BE OFFENDED BY THE SUBJECT MATTER

(NB: The title of this post is a play on the title of Nine Deuce's blog, and "medicine" is a reference to how Nine Deuce appears to be suggesting we "cure" kinkiness)

I've been away for the past few days, and not kept up to speed on the goings on on my favourite blogs. So it was with some shock and dismay that I read this, this and this (first to at Renegade Evolution, last one at Trinity's LJ).

I am not going to link directly to Nine Deuce's post or comments thread - I haven't read them, and I have no intention of doing so. The quoted remarks in Trin's and Ren's posts are quite enough to have me incandescent with rage and fury, most particularly, this one, wishing me dead because I'm a homosexual sadist:

If you have that kind of dark side, it might be best to leave it unexplored. Or kill yourself (if you’re the customer, that is).

I have a tag called "fierce"; I use the term in my blog header. My header pic is a stylised pic of me wielding two handguns. Just recently I posted a remark that my initial reaction to a hate crime against women was a desire for the perpetrators to find themselves sent to prison where they could meet some "real" men of their own, who would "do rape" on their arses. (Please note, I did immediately afterwards say that this is not what I genuinely wish to happen, because we will not end rape by wishing it on others.) I mention this reaction to clarify what sort of anger and vengeful reactions I can have. I mention it also to put into perspective that the rage and fury that I feel about the above remark makes the emotion behind that reaction pale into insignificance. I am ferociously angry.

I would like to point out to ND (but won't because that would mean actually going over there, and my rage is not the type that should be allowed into direct contact with its instigator) that it is not so very long ago that it was common to find such attitudes as that being made about homosexuals (which point I've made above with my use of the [strike] html tag). Hell, the crime of which Joan of Arc was found guilty, and for which she was burnt at the stake was wearing male clothing. Yes, putting people to death for their gender or sexual orientation has a long and ignoble history, ND.

The only difference between you, ND, and the fuckers who murder homosexual folks, transsexual folks, or even female folks, is that you're demanding that the people you hate do the job for you instead. You want me dead? You're going to have to fucking well come and do it yourself. Look me in the eye. Listen to me plead for my life. Watch as I put my neck on the chopping block and wait for the axe to fall, trembling with fear. Or maybe you'd prefer to draw the knife across my throat as you hold my head back (I have long hair, that would make it a lot easier to do) - feeling the muscles in my neck strain against you, the last panicking gulps as I wish desperately for a way out. Maybe you don't like the sight of blood. Maybe you'd rather place the noose around my neck, watching my helpless eyes as I struggle vainly against the ropes binding my wrists behind my back, my ankles to one another, until you pull the lever and I drop to my death. I don't know, maybe you couldn't bear to hear the sickening -crack- as my neck breaks, couldn't bear to watch my body dance and twitch for a few minutes more as it dangles on the end of the cord. Could you instead face the smell of my flesh burning in the electric chair (or, hell, maybe you'd choose to do to me what they did to Joan of Arc?) Would you listen to my dying screams? I'm sure you wouldn't want to give me the dignity of dying as Socrates did, by forcing me to drink poison, but maybe some sort of injection would be easy enough for you? Maybe you could stand to watch as all my muscles simultaneously clench, and expel the air from my lungs in a dying gasp? To see my hands grasp uselessly at my fleeing life?

Do you still believe the lie, "dulcis quod mitis interficio pro vestri potissimus"?** Is this feminism? Are you of the philosophy of Louis-Antoine St. Just? Will your feminism demand "a mattress of corpses"? IS THIS WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE WOMEN BECOME!?

You call me sick, you say that I should consider suicide because I have a dark side, and because I do not repress it but explore it in safely controlled ways. I admit it: I have sexual fantasies about murder and torture - those scenarios I described above (apart from the lethal injection) are derived from some of my sexual fantasies - but in those fantasies they happen to men and women who never existed and never will exist. At my NSFW blog, I have written about or created images of, some of these fantasies.

And yet, ND, you are the one wishing death and abuse on real, living, people here. You are the one who sees nothing wrong with that. If you can stomach the idea of slaughtering the thousands of kinky folks who enjoy Kink.com, or even harder BDSM porn, if you would be willing to do it yourself, could listen to their pleading, and then their screaming, and feel that you had done a good thing by doing it, then you are truly a sick and twisted individual, the likes of which should be locked away for the safety of society.

And if you couldn't stomach the idea of doing it yourself - if the idea of that carnage actually makes you fill ill and queasy, if the idea of finding the dead body afterwards, clammy, cold, lifeless, maybe lying in a pool of blood, maybe dangling from a light fitting, maybe brains and bone and blood spattered across the wall behind them, maybe left for a day or two, the flies or maggots crawling through the viscera, is enough to make you balk; if the thought of being the one to go to that person's parents, brothers, sisters, significant other(s), children, and explaining what happened to their loved one and why, makes you pause and wonder - if any of that troubles you at all...

Then maybe you can see why I hate you for even suggesting it in the first place. Even if you meant it as a joke, that's a joke about killing me. Jokes about rape are not okay. Neither are jokes about killing people (or asking them to commit suicide) for their sexuality.

I will confess, a fantasy punishment for ND came to me as my initial reaction (like the male prison rape reaction I had to the defaced poster incident) to reading about the "kill yourself" remark. However, because it is purely fantasy and has nothing to do with what I would wish on any real life human being, I shall keep it to myself.

I shall say this, also - research shows that a common thread in serial killers is a history of sexual repression; that is, of forcibly "not exploring" aspects of their sexuality. I have written before about how it was only when I tried to repress or deny my darker side, that it presented any danger to myself or others, and that expressing and exploring it has enabled me to engage with it safely. Ignoring it or repressing it won't make it go away, it's a part of who I am, and always has been.

** Translation: "[it is] a sweet and noble murder for your ideals."

Mega Member

The latest spam email trying to persuade me I need a bigger penis came with the heading:

All people of weak gender prefer mega member

I swear, it took me ages to realise that it meant something other than, "All people who are insecure about their own gender identity, feel the need to compensate for it by enlarging their cocks/only sleeping with men with big cocks."

Jobcentre Aggro

The following is more or less the text of a letter that I have emailed to my MP:

("T___" represents the town in which the nearest Jobcentre to my home is to be found - it is not actually in the same Parliamentary constituency as my home, but will be familiar to my MP)

I am writing to you today to draw to your attention some issues with the way in which the rules governing the way in which Jobcentre staff are able to handle circumstances relating to jobseekers’ activities, and also to ask for you as far as possible to intervene in these matters.

I have been unemployed since October 2007, and claiming Jobseekers Allowance since then. In that time, I feel that on several occasions the operation of the rules have tended to hinder rather than promote my efforts to find employment. I am writing to you now about the most recent of these occasions, and what I feel to be the most direct and obvious example of such hindrance.

On Wednesday 21st January I was informed by my parents of a jobs fair being held the next week near to where they live. This struck them, and me, as being an ideal opportunity for me to expand my search for a job beyond the Wealden area, since relocation would be easy by moving into the spare bedroom at my parents’ until such time as I could find my own accommodation in the new region. I therefore made plans to visit my parents in order to attend the jobs fair. It was my intention to spend a few days afterwards in the area just in case any employers wanted me to attend an interview soon afterwards.

By coincidence, the date of the jobs fair was the same date as my next signing on at the Jobcentre in T___; I therefore immediately rang the Jobcentre to inform them of my plans and in the hope that alternative arrangements could be made for my signing. I expressed the hope that I could sign on Tuesday 27th January instead of Wednesday 28th, as this would give me the opportunity of staying those extra days with my parents hoping for a call to interview.

Firstly, I was told that it was never possible to sign earlier than the due date for signing. Although I was disappointed by this, I was not particularly surprised (even though it is common practice to alter signing, or paying-out days, to account for Bank Holidays). I was told in my first telephone call to the Jobcentre that I would have to attend on Thursday 29th January to sign and that I would have to “hope that a signing slot is available”. As I had occasion to attend the Citizens Advice Bureau on Friday 23rd January, I mentioned this situation to the advisor there, along with the other subjects on which I was seeking advice, and from the CAB made a second telephone call to the Jobcentre, with the guidelines concerning such situations in front of me. These guidelines stated clearly that I should be given a specific appointment since I had informed them of the fact and reasons for my missing the Wednesday signing, and it was only with the information there in front of me that I was able to secure the appointment, and thereby my ability to sign at all.

Secondly, I was not informed at any time prior to my journey that it would have been possible to arrange for me to sign at the Jobcentre local to the jobs fair. I only discovered this when I attended the jobs fair, and I asked the representatives of the local Jobcentre to provide some form of proof that I had attended the jobs fair as I had informed the T___ Jobcentre I would do. The local Jobcentre staff members refused to provide such a signature or proof of my attendance, but told me I should have arranged in advance for their job centre to accept my official signature.

Thirdly, and of most concern to me, I was informed that if I chose to attend the jobs fair instead of signing at my originally scheduled time and date, that the matter would have to be referred to an external adjudication as to whether my reasons for not attending were sufficient to justify it. It is this point in particular that I feel constitutes a clear barrier to my efforts to find work. Whenever an external adjudication is made in this way, it at least carries the possibility that sanctions will be applied against a jobseeker. The fear of this was a strong disincentive to me in seeking to attend the jobs fair. I was told that I would need as much proof as possible of my attending the jobs fair, and of opportunities gained by doing so (this is why I asked the local Jobcentre employees to give me some form of proof of my attendance at the jobs fair).

In the end, I decided that I would attend the jobs fair because I felt that I should do everything in my power to look for work, and should ignore the barriers being put in my way by the Jobcentre rules – in the words of a famous Conservative politician, I decided that I would “get on my bike and look for work”. I returned home on Wednesday 28th January having attended the jobs fair and made several applications by CV, and acquired in addition application forms for other jobs, which evidence I then presented to the Jobcentre on Thursday morning when I attended my appointment to sign late.

I am still awaiting the outcome of the external adjudication as to whether my attendance at the jobs fair was sufficient reason to miss my scheduled signing date and time.

The barriers that I feel the Jobcentre placed in front of me, when I had hoped instead for encouragement and assistance, are therefore as follows:

• Failure to inform me accurately of all the options for me to sign on;
• The inability to sign early, which would have made my attendance at the jobs fair less hurried, and would also have made it easier to be available for employers had they wished to interview me;
• The initial failure to grant me a specific appointment to sign on Thursday;
• The inability of the staff at T___ Jobcentre to make an assessment of my reasons for not attending on Wednesday, and necessity instead of sending it to external adjudication.

In a time of economic crisis, when more and more people are becoming unemployed, it seems to me to be counterproductive to be placing barriers such as these in the way of those who, like me, are earnestly and vigorously doing all they can to secure gainful employment. It is with great alarm that I have viewed the Government’s current proposals to use the unemployed as de facto slave labour, and I can only imagine how much harder this will make the task of finding actual gainful employment and lifting oneself from the mire of joblessness.

Hate and Love and Friendship

Two pieces from Feministe today:

Firstly, I want to draw attention to an incredibly moving video highlighted by Cara, called Don't Divorce Us, about the thousands of Californian gay couples whose marriages are threatened by the passage of Proposition 8 last November. While it's a California-specific message (for the moment), the emotions are real across the world, and this is something that is close to my heart for a number of reasons in the shape of people (fairly) close to me personally in England (where the Civil Union solution really is "marriage in all but name").

Secondly, a story of an anti-rape poster that was defaced and altered to give the opposite message. The poster originally read "Real men do not let other men rape". Someone with a stanley knife or something cut out several of the words, leaving "Real men do rape". Retribution justice would demand that whoever did this should find themselves in prison, and subjected to the attentions of some "real men" in the manner that their version of the poster prescribed. Who knows, it might just work to teach them the error of their ways, and work from a "reform" model of punishment, too? Yeah, I'm pretty angry about this, and that picture of me at the top, describing myself as "fierce", with guns in hand and a snarl on my face? That's the side of me this story brings out. Ethically, I cannot support the type of punishment that my rage wants to mete out to the perpetrators of this hate crime - I don't think we bring an end to rape by perpetrating more of it!

The heading of this post explains the link between the two pieces, in my opinion. Both of them hinge on hatred, those who are hated, and those opposing hatred. In the video about gay couples' right to remain married, we see the hatred and fear that people bring to considering gay folks, but we also see how their love for one another endures despite that. In the original poster against rape, it is the important factor that it is our duties as human beings (don't even bother with the gender part of the original statement) to stand up against crimes of physical brutality that directly attack a person's humanity - and that a good friend does not stand idly by while his friend commits such a crime, but should stop him and be the conscience that his friend needs. The defacing of that poster shows a viceral hatred of women, and a vile image of what it means to be masculine.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that against hatred, we will still have friends, and lovers, who won't let it go, won't let it be, won't allow hate to hold the field, but always shall fight back against it.

Introducing NTPPOD 2009

That's National Take a Photo of a Police Officer Day 2009.

Penny Red, in the post linked above (please, go read the whole thing), alerted her readers to yet another infringement of the civil liberties and rights that help guarantee democratic government, that the New Labour government has managed to sneak in under the radar; I like to think I'm pretty aware of these things happening, but this one managed to pass me by until today.

Set to become law on the 16th of February in the UK, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer. Laws are being introduced that allow for the arrest - and fining, and imprisonment for up to ten years - of anyone who takes pictures of officers 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.

The law is expected to increase the anti-terrorism powers used today by police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places.

Rest assured, I shall be seeking to participate as much as possible in this campaign. As outlined, it isn't any specific day, just between now and 16th February, to get as many pictures as possible of British police officers on duty.

Feminist Chatroom on Bondage IRC

I'm a very irregular user of the bondage.com IRC server, but when I do, there are plenty of good people in kinkdom whom I enjoy meeting there. However, I get very very cross with seeing such chatroom names as:

• #women-are-property-of-men
• #women_as_natural_slaves
• #total_ownership_of_females

While some of these may be purely roleplay ideas, the topic headings often disgust me just as much as the channel names. And speaking of topic lines, there are several other chatrooms on the IRC server whose subject lines are equally offensive in their gendering of roles.

I have finally grown fed up of there not being any balance to this, and so I am setting up on the irc.bondage.com server a chatroom called #D/s_Feminism . I may or may not get around to setting up a website for the new chatroom, but I want to advertise it here because I hope that other kinky feminists may also be users of the bondage.com IRC server might be reading this blog. It would be great to get the channel up and running and have some proper debate (and heck, maybe even a bit of online roleplay, too).

Obviously I don't see a conflict between feminism and my D/s kink; hopefully others will feel the same way too.