Tuesday, January 16, 2018

If you need to settle something. And it's important. Then you need to settle it on top of a building. With Swords. In the rain.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Thoughts on the Brotherhood of Steel circa New Vegas

I did a write up on the Brotherhood of Steel circa New Vegas
They're organized at a village level. Each village is nominally ruled by an elder, but the elder seems to have very limited direct authority except on military matters. The villages are organized in a clan structure. The clan has a nominal hierarchy but ultimately the villages have a high degree of independence. At both the village and the clan level the leaders rely heavily on consensus.
The Brotherhood clan has two primary castes which are the most important aspect of personal identity for it's members; Knights handle most military affairs, military technology, and protect the villages. Scribes handle learning, history, and most importantly science. Both castes have important roles inside and outside the village and while they may clash on some matters they are deeply interdependent and both are highly respected in Brotherhood society.
Due to the small population and the low level of political complexity decision making in the Brotherhood relying heavily on traditional roles and consensus. The elders can order their nominal subordinates around but the subordinates have a lot of power to push back by the time honored tradition of slacking off, misinterpreting orders, or just losing things. Moreover, because the community is so small and so insular there is a huge social cost for alienating anyone, This tends to encourage moderating views while pushing extremes to the periphery, even to the point where particularly disruptive individuals may be sentenced to a sort of semi-exile.
The clan is extremely insular, limiting contact with the outside world to trade matters and military encounters. The Brotherhood's internal economy seems to be entirely social. Individuals, even of high rank, have few personal possessions beyond clothes and odds and ends. Low ranking members live in communal barracks while high ranking members have small personal accommodations. Eating, bathing, and pretty much all other normal activities seem to be communal and likely social in nature, with very little concept of privacy within the village.
Most important property, including the village, most weapons and armor, supplies, and so forth are communally held and given out on a need basis. There seems to be little if any economic stratification and the economy within the village seems to be almost entirely communistic; The village owns all property and individuals use it as needed, returning it to communal stores when not in use.
The Brotherhood trades with the world outside the village using a combination of cash and barter, like most of the wasteland. The brotherhood likely employs its extraordinary technical skills, combined with advanced (albeit small scale) manufacturing capabilities to either produce high tech items for sale or repair high tech items. The presumably trade these items for food stuff, raw materials, tech items, and medical supplies. Beyond economic trade the Brotherhood seems to have a high degree of self sufficiency as the military vaults and bunkers they occupy were intended to survive in a sealed condition for extended periods of time.
I would submit, based on this analysis, that far from being capitalists the Brotherhood amounts to a very small scale, local communal society. Nor are they anarchists, having a strong internal structure with established hierarchies, albeit mostly based on tradition rather than overt coercion. Their advanced small scale fabrication abilities, extremely durable material goods and buildings, and spartan living style make them effectively a post-industrial society, able to manufacture or scavenge all needed technologies using what is effectively household industry. With no real production of consumer goods or mass manufacture they do not have the economic structure that would create stratification between a working class and a capital owning class, and indeed hold property communally at the village level.
TLDR; They're not really socialists or anarchists or capitalists. They're a low complexity society based on village life and an extended clan. They exist as a nation in the cultural sense but are not stratified or structured enough to constitute a state, in contrast to the highly structured nation-states of the NCR and the Legion, as well as the city-State of New Vegas.
In a sense they are in the position similar to low complexity tribes being confronted with imperial expansion during the 15-20th centuries. While they are distinctive in having a measurably superior technical base that makes them a serious military power they are still extremely vulnerable to imperialism due to their reliance on their (hardened military long term survival bunker) villages to maintain their way of life, making retreat from the edges of imperial expansion almost impossible.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Here's a list of useful links and ways you can fight back and resist The Beast.

- https://contribute.itstarts.today//2018

- https://knockeverydoor.org/

- https://mobile.twitter.com/slpng_giants

- http://whatdoidoabouttrump.com/

- https://www.flippable.org/our-plan/

- https://www.indivisibleguide.com/

- http://www.100calls100days.com/

- https://archive.org/details/trumparchive&tab=collection

- https://sojo.net/matthew-25-pledge

- http://www.takeactionminnesota.org/events/

- http://sexmagazine.us/sexlife/protest-posters-by-will-luckman/


I'm not sure who to attribute this image too, but an inspiring message flown over New York





I marched in Minneapolis today. I marched with people of color and white people. I marched with people singing in English and Spanish and a few languages I didn't recognize. I marched with disabled people and Native American dancers and Wobblies and a surprising number of dogs. I marched with kids and with elderly people and with everyone in between.

Today is D-Day +0. In 1944 D-Day was the Allied invasion of continental Europe, part of a vast invasion plan that would ultimately see the US, Canadians, English, French, Russians, and many others drive the Fascist Nazi war machine all the way back to Berlin.

In 2017 D-Day is the first day of Fascist rule in the United States of America. We've had a long history of bad leaders in this country, from slave owning founders to Andrew "Prototype Drumpf" Jackson on through Nixon, Bush II Electric Boogaloo, Barack "It's okay if I declare them terrorists" Obama, and now Il Douche.

Things are bad. Lots of people are going to die. Lots of people die under every Presidency as the POTUS decides who has to be killed in the nation of international capitalism and American global hegemony, but that tends to happen overseas or in parts of the US the middle class doesn't visit, so opposition to it is somewhat limited.

Drumpf is different. He's a fascist. He is unable to perform the basic tasks required of the role. He is extremely ill prepared. He is essentially leaving the ship of state rudderless and without a helmsmen. While that might be good for immediate domestic concerns it will pose problems down the line.

Right now we need to organize and take action. Find one of the many, many grass-roots groups in your area and get looped in and hyped up. If you can't find a group that suits your needs form your own. We need to mobilize everyone. This is the greatest threat the United States has ever faced, and unfortunately instead of a transformative threat that would realize a better, more just, more equal, more accepting society it is a nihilistic, destructive threat that will simply add to the burden of misery.

But have hope. Our opponent is just a man, a very old man, and not a terrible clever one. We can beat him and either drive him to resign or impeach him. He is the last gasp of the bad old days and if we weather this and come out on top in 2018 or 2020 we may well see a weather change that will wipe out much of what is awful in America and allow us to sail on to a truly better tomorrow for everyone.

Friday, January 20, 2017

I marched at the head of a column 5,000 strong. An army without arms, the steel canyons thundered beneath the weight of their footfalls. Their banners were of all colors and they spoke many languages. Forged from all clans and families and nations they came together for common cause; To see Evil and to denounce it in a loud voice.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Yeah I uh... I honestly don't know what to say. I am not aware of any successful models for resisting a fascist demagogue  once they have seized executive power.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

I'm taking a 24 hour hiatus from venting spleen to conquer certain academic activities. TTFN.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Arsonist In Chief

One of the many frightening things going on in the US right now is how the media's carefully cultivated fake neutrality is enabling Orange Muppet Hitler's impending reign. If ever there was a time when we needed a defiant and oppositional press it is right now. I don't know enough about contemporary journalism to criticism them, but you see articles like this and you wonder why the headline isn't

"President Elect continues to stonewall on conflicts of interest" 


or something a little more critical.

It should be clear by now that Drumpf is going to employ the age old technique of slash and burn to get the most out of his presidency. All his appointee picks thus far have been sighted gleefully running around with torches and machetes just waiting until they can get in to the fertile rainforest of the United States Civil Service and start clearing out plots to sell off to the highest bidder. Drumpf isn't going to let his cronies get all that filthy, filthy public lucre and then keep it to themselves. He's going to make a deal! He's a smart guy! If anyone is going to funnel federal education dollars in to private christian creationist charter magnets the orangest man in the room is going to get his cut.

The big question is whether there will be an American Civil Service left in 2020. They've been hammered by decades of fail-deadly Republican policies, spending freezes, hiring freezes, furloughs, and other violence against the structure of Government, the gleeful hack job that's going to begin January 20th is going to do damage that may take decades to repair.

Note to self: Find something pithier than Orange Muppet Hitler. Or just set up a keyboard shortcut to type it automatically.

EDIT: Damn. In the time it took me to type this WaPo changed their headline from something about how Drumpf postponed an announcement about resolving his conflict of interest. Now it says he'll hand things over to his sons? Isn't the internet a wonder? Letting the media make excuses for politicians in real time!
Alright, folks, we're up and running again.

The question is, what to run about? It's obvious really. There's only one game in town.

What the fuck is the world supposed to do with Drumpf? Orange Muppet Hitler is cozying up to Putin and every one of his appointee picks is an arsonist pillager ideally suited to loot and then burn their agency. He's pissing off the Chinese for asinine reasons (unless he just wants them to cancel his debt). And he's got a list of conflicts of interest that would legitimately take a very long time to list and explain. He's a nightmare. He's the nightmare of our age. All of America's anti-intellectualism and racism and exceptionalism and bile congealed in to one weird orange artificially turfed package.

It's going to be an exciting four years and I want to make sure my voice is heard before Drumpf re-writes our libel laws and makes this sort of thing a summary execution offense.

So strap in, buckle up, keep on hand on the fire extinguisher, this jalopy is getting back on the highway.