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.

    • 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.