mad men pt II

I just have to quickly update my thoughts on Mad Men! I’m now on season 4 (shut up, I had to do a lot of design on the computer ok XD) and I am SO in love with the show and all of its characters, too. I think the first season, as brilliant as it was, had a lot of the characters appear in such a fashion that they would seem more like charicatures at times. Now there’s been SO much character development and uuuugh can’t even put it into words, it’s SUCH A GREAT SHOW omg

"My point is that feminists are not biological determinists. Feminists are the least likely people to say ‘all men are bastards’. Some of them might say ‘many men behave like bastards’. But they don’t imply that such behaviour is acceptable because its genetic or ‘natural’ for men to behave that way, like those arguments defending rapists which imply that men are really all just stupid cavemen who can’t be blamed when they rape because, hey, men just can’t help it when they see someone in a mini skirt. Feminists don’t write books about how men are genetically incapable of picking up an iron. Feminists don’t write books about how men are from another planet, one where men have to be left ‘in their cave’ because they just don’t have proper emotions like women do. That’s because actually, feminists think men should be treated as fully functional human beings with brains and morals who should be held responsible for the choices they make."
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‘Feminists are Sexist’ - Features - The F-Word  (via speak-slow)

This quote is truth. 

The thing about, “The patriarchy/kyriearchy,” is that it has nothing to do with the vast majority of men. It has everything to do with creating a power structure and privilege that benefits men, (particularly white/cis/het/rich men) and oppresses just about everybody else. 

I do not ascribe ill-intent, ill-will, or predation to the vast majority of men. That we live in a society that teaches them a certain entitlement, has nothing to do with them as individuals. 

What I do say, is this: Smashing down the walls of oppression is everybody’s job. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem. Choose. Choose wisely. 

Then again, I say that to prescriptive feminists, too. I’m not swapping out one form of oppression for another one, just because it happens to have women heading it. 

(via carnivaloftherandom)

(via countvonroo)


"All that concerns itself with beauty and truth, with those forces that have the power to transform us, are being steadily extinguished by our corporate state. Art. Education. Literature. Music. Theater. Dance. Poetry. Philosophy. Religion. Journalism. None of these disciplines are worthy in the corporate state of support or compensation. These are pursuits that, even in our universities, are condemned as impractical. But it is only through the impractical, through that which can empower our imagination, that we will be rescued as a species."

"To summarize: It is a well-known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
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Douglas Adams, the restaurant at the end of the universe

I’m finally getting around to reading the rest of “trilogy of five” of the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy series, and while I have to admit they’re not as superbly awesome as the first (glargh negativity), I’m enjoying them thoroughly and there are little gems like this one to be found on nearly every other page!


"

The US and Europe are committing suicide in different ways. In Europe it’s austerity in the midst of recession and that’s guaranteed to be a disaster. There’s some resistance to that now. In the US, it’s essentially off-shoring production and financialization and getting rid of superfluous population through incarceration.

In Europe there’s an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe… and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It’s hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract. In fact, some leaders come right out and say it. Mario Draghi the president of the European Central Bank had an interview with the Wall St Journal in which he said the social contract’s dead; we finally got rid of it.

In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it’s been pretty much run by private concentrated spending but now it’s over the top. Elections increasingly over the years have been [public relations] extravaganzas. It was understood by the ad industry in 2008 — they gave Barack Obama their marketing award of the year. This year it’s barely a pretense.

"

"Forgive me, but I don’t want to watch uncorked champagne spill onto hallowed ground where thousands were murdered in cold blood. And I don’t want to see any ugly blood stained sheets as proof of death or justice. Nor do I want to think about bullet-ridden corpses being dumped into the sea. And it breaks my heart to witness young Americans cheer any death — even the death of a horrible, evil, murderous person — like it is some raucous tailgate party on a college campus."