So there was a recent post of some right wingers standing next to a ballot box to intimidate voters. This is clearly bad. They also made questionable aesthetic choices, like wearing dad cargo-shorts and growing goatees. This is also clearly bad.

So, what did Chapeau.Chat focus on? The weight of these men of course!

Let's start with the basics:

--Everyone has a range of weights their body is comfortable at. If you try to go too low or too high in this range, your body will start sending your hunger and satiety signals to keep you within that range. While you can go higher or lower in that range by manipulating Calories-in-calories-out, this range is fairly fixed without medical intervention. In other words, some people are just fat.

--There are other uncontrollable factors that effect weight. In Texas, for example, there are fewer walk-able neighborhoods and more access to fast food than here in Portland where there are more new-seasons than mcDonalds or Manhattan where it's easier to take the train than to drive.

--Socially, weight is co-constructed with fitness and self-control. In the protestant value system (the dominant one in the U.S. even among atheists), self control is one of the most important virtues. Fat implies unfit implies poor self control. Thin implies fit implies good self control.

Protestant morality is, here, at odds with reality. Weight here is co-produced by environment, hormones, eating habits and movement habits. All of those things are only partially under our control, and a Portlander is always going to have an easier time being thin than an Austintonian. Moralizing weight the way this community did celebrates protestant morality over basic reality.

As communists, we are better than that.

Call them fascists, make fun of their ugly beards, offer to shoplift them better shorts, but don't fat-shame them.

  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    The fact that I can't legally ship my homemade fruit wines via USPS but it is apparently in fact legal to send actually shit via USPS is simultaneously frustrating and hilarious.

    • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Sorry, not going to have a discussion about anything besides the fact that you spend your time on this website advocating violence against animals.

      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I'm not advocating violence against animals, I've just made peace with the fact that I don't have a controlling interest in what other people eat. I lost that power when I stopped cooking for room mates after grad school.

        • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Calling violence "fine" is advocating it. Not being able to control something doesn't make it fine and it doesn't mean you should spend your time advocating it. I can't control other people's racism, I don't spend my time logging onto hexbear, finding every anti-racist post I can, and saying "racism is fine, you can be racist and a leftist, stop splitting the left against our racist comrades." If I did that I'd be advocating racism.

          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            I mean the subject of the post is that we're all in agreement that it's inappropriate to step into an individuals personal relationship with weight, food, and their body.

            You wanting to add the carve out "unless you feel morally justified in doing so" kinda deflates the original claim into nothingness given that anyone can morally justify anything to themselves.

            • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              You shouldn't shame people for being fat because being fat isn't wrong, not because putting something in my mouth causes it to enter some sacred inviolate realm of personal autonomy. If I kill and eat you, that's not "my personal relationship with food", that's a relationship of violence with you. If I pay a poor person to kill a chicken so I can eat it, that's not my personal relationship with food, that's a relationship of violence with that chicken.

              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                ·
                edit-2
                2 years ago

                If you think that your eating chicken is a relationship of violence that inappropriately abrogates the rights of a chicken then you shouldn't do that.

                I'm not going to get tangled in others people's relationship with their body and their diets though. Far too fraught. And that holds even if I'm certain I know better than them and would be morally justified in doing so. Because I'm a moron who is wrong all the time.

                • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  2 years ago

                  Yes you are correct, eating chicken isn't fine. Being a reactionary is not fine and not something we should advocate by calling it fine. Tolerance does not extend to reactionaries. A chicken's body is not your body and not part of your relationship with your body.

                    • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      Cool. I kind of don't believe you. Either way, stop advocating for other people to do it.

                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        2 years ago

                        I mean I don't know what to tell you there. And I'm not advocating for other people to do it. I think they should do what they think is right in terms of their dietary choices. Which includes not eating chicken if they think they shouldn't.

                        • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                          ·
                          edit-2
                          2 years ago

                          Believe it or not, saying something is "fine" is advocating that thing. Playing enlightened centrist and not drawing any difference between good and bad things, just saying "follow your heart :)" is reactionary behavior. "I think different unions should do what they think is right in terms of racial segregation, which includes allowing black people if they think they should" is patently a statement which defends segregation.

                          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                            ·
                            edit-2
                            2 years ago

                            I'm not saying eating chicken is fine. I don't eat chicken.

                            I said, more or less, thinking eating chicken is fine is fine. Which of course it clearly is, I know tons of good people who think it's fine and thus eat it.

                            • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              2 years ago

                              "Eating chicken is fine if you think eating chicken is fine" is just a needlessly convoluted way of saying "eating chicken is fine." "Good person" is a nonsense label, we should talk about specific behaviors as right and wrong, not people as good or bad. Racism is wrong, carnism is wrong. Plenty of people throughout history have been bigots, we don't have to judge them as "good people" and "bad people," to spend our time arguing about whether Stalin was a "good person" or a "bad person" based on e.g. the criminalization of homosexuality. We do need to be clear that racism, homophobia, and carnism are wrong, not fine, and things we should advocate against.

                              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                ·
                                2 years ago

                                But I don't interact with behaviors, I interact with people. I can engage in behaviors myself, but as soon as it's someone else's behavior in question it's outside of my zone of direct control, so any modulations of the behavior have to be done through the person and my relationship with them.

                                    • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                                      ·
                                      2 years ago

                                      Ok, literally killing and eating animals is "just a choice" but discriminating against humans makes you a bad person.

                                      You are a speciesist. If hatred and bigotry makes someone a bad person, you are one. Fuck off.

                                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                        ·
                                        edit-2
                                        2 years ago

                                        I actually think I'm rather swell, if a bit dense. And speciesm doesn't actually mean anything everyone's a speciest, or at the very least a phylumist or kingdomist, in as much as species and phylums and kingdoms are anything beyond abstractions (which they aren't).

                                        • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                                          ·
                                          2 years ago

                                          You are correct, species are abstractions. That's why using species to draw lines of when violence is "fine" and when violence makes you a "bad person" is bullshit.

                                            • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                                              ·
                                              2 years ago

                                              You don't have to because the violence is built into society. You can just go sit in the whites-only section of the restaurant and feel smug about the fact that you personally don't care what color your friends' skin is, because the mechanisms of privilege are all ready made for you to take advantage of, and then get mad at all those black protesters because they care so much, and enlightened people don't care about things.

                                                • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                                                  ·
                                                  2 years ago

                                                  Cool, because the racism isn't something you can put in your mouth you can recognize it as a bad thing.

                                                    • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                                                      ·
                                                      2 years ago

                                                      I have no doubt there are plenty of racists on this website, and plenty more who come in from time to time. Taking action against racism is how we deal with them. Taking action against carnism is how we deal with the reactionary human supremacists. Spending your time sniping at vegans as you do is the opposite of that.

                                                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                        ·
                                                        edit-2
                                                        2 years ago

                                                        I mean I think we can all agree leftism, is at the current juncture explicitly anti-racist in it's construction and I think we can all agree in theory (if not in practice in specific instances) that a leftist doing a racism is either not doing leftism at that point or doing leftism poorly.

                                                        • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
                                                          ·
                                                          edit-2
                                                          2 years ago

                                                          All I'm hearing is "There are no good and bad things, only group consensus. Racism became bad when we all agreed it was bad."

                                                          Edit: Look, all I really want is for you to stop hurting animals and stop punching left at vegans. If you feel the need to play enlightened centrist, punch right and go annoy the anti-vegans who keep stirring up shit, especially on this comm.