AnarchoNinaAnalyzes

Working writer account for AnarchoNinaWrites.

Writer, analyst, anti-capitalist, anarcho-syndicalist. "If you tolerate this, then your children will be next."

Que Se Vayan Todos. Ni ici ni ailleurs. No pasarán.

Slumming 'round Carcosa with a library card and zero f*cks left to give. Inquiries likely to be ignored.

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Last Notes

2024-08-27 19:40:10

“Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.”
- Naomi Klein, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate."

2024-08-23 18:33:12

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@npub1dgz…4q3g yes. I think so; last hurdle is taking him off the urinary relaxant meds and hoping he still pees okay.

2024-08-12 15:11:05

“The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that is has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history.”
- Peter Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid: a factor of evolution."

2024-08-12 14:23:29

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@npub1xna…w603 I don't care what you dislike. Nor am I particularly interested in why you think it's important that Starmer is better than Sunak.

2024-08-12 14:11:28

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@npub1xna…w603 The state is never good and I'm not here for apologia.

2024-08-12 14:11:28

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@npub1xna…w603 The state is never good and I'm not here for apologia.

2024-07-23 19:33:08

A very short thread about why yes, it's a culture war, and no that doesn't mean it's trivial, not an existential battle for survival, or something anyone who doesn't want to join the fascists can opt out of:
https://jorts.horse/@AnarchoNinaWrites/112837396061162471

2024-07-12 19:37:44

#FediBlock This is literally a concern trolling nazi posting about "postmodernism" and "antifa own goals" @npub1qtf…yq3j before trying to argue for voter suppression in my replies on the other account.
Runs his own instance so you'll have to block the entire thing. Don't say I didn't warn you.

2024-04-02 20:49:44

Me: "I'm not out here for money and I ain't trying to lead you anywhere. Unfollow is high on the right."
Some rando: "goodbye forever, misleader. you have added no value at all, of any kind."

2024-03-22 22:32:27

As some of you may have heard, noted shitbag nazi political organization Turning Point U.S.A. invited fascist vigilante murderer Kyle Rittenhouse to speak on the campus of the University of Memphis; and my friends, it did not go well for the fash. After arriving to find about 200 protestors waiting for him, amid fairly tepid support for his cracker nonsense and supposed "gun rights" advocacy, Rittenhouse responded to a question about Charlie Kirk's racism with “we’re gonna have a bit of a dialogue of what racist things Charlie Kirk said.” When it turned out the protestors came prepared to discuss the subject, Kyle refused to answer questions and then fled the stage as boos cascaded down on him from the auditorium.
https://news.yahoo.com/kyle-rittenhouse-flees-stage-face-150052450.html?
First of all, congratulations to the students of the University of Memphis who were simply not having this nazi bullshit. The correct way to respond to fascists coming to your school to spread fascist ideology, is to chase them off campus, so mission accomplished on that front.
Truthfully however, I'm sharing this recap of the story because the entire reactionary right media sphere is trying, and lying, very hard to spin the events of this evening as we speak. Major media outlets have implied that Rittenhouse fled because of violent, left wing "antifa" protestors. Charlie Kirk has tried to portray TPUSA as a victim of discrimination by the University of Memphis, and accused them of actively preventing more nazis from showing up to support Rittenhouse. And Rittenhouse himself is going with the "I meant to do that" defense by saying protestors didn't boo him off the stage and that he merely left because the event had a hard time limit.
Literally all of this is bullshit, that nazi manbaby got scared of some college kids asking him some goddamn questions. This is because fascists are cowards, and without a white supremacist social order to protect them from even having to answer for their cracker nonsense, they will always run. Thankfully, this Yahoo News reprint of a paywalled Daily Beast article includes an embedded video that debunks pretty much all of the revanchist right wing media's talking points and excuses for Rittenhouse's cowardice.
Kids, make fascists afraid again; even if the adults around you are busy pretending they aren't real and they'll go away if Donald Trump loses another election. They won't go away, but they sure as shit aren't going to fight all of you. Organize, put boots on the ground, and chase these nazi fucksticks out of your communities - it works.
#Fascism #Memphis #TPUSA #Rittenhouse

2024-03-21 23:13:52

In news that is somehow both shocking, and not at all surprising, Trump's failson-in-law and former foreign affairs adviser is now casually advocating for ethnic cleansing, via the forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. Citing, I shit you not, waterfront property values and ruination caused by Israel's genocidal campaign of destruction in the Palestinian territory, Jared Kushner advocated pushing Gaza's citizens into Egypt or Israel's Negev desert, while speaking at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in February; and somehow, these comments only became public this month.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/kushner-ethnic-cleansing-gaza
"I know that that's been refused, but [with] the right diplomacy I think it would be possible," Kushner added. "But in addition to that, the thing that I would try to do if I was Israel right now is I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there. I know that won't be the popular thing to do, but I think that that's a better option to do so you can go in and finish the job."
Despite the American corporate media's tepid coverage of Kushner's comments, I can tell you unequivocally that what Kushner is advocating for here is textbook ethnic cleansing; a euphemism for genocide. Furthermore, the forcible transfer or deportation of a targeted group within a state is literally a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Planning, or inciting either is also itself a crime under international law, so you'd think Kushner's casual advocation for these policies might have drawn greater scrutiny in U.S. media; although perhaps given the bipartisan political support for the genocide Israel is *already* conducting in Gaza, maybe they just chalked it up to "a normal weekday in Amerikkka."
Although one might be tempted to disregard Kushner's comments as mere opinion, it's important to remember that Jared's father-in-law, Donald Trump, is running for President of the United States, and it is extremely likely that a Trump victory will bring Kushner back into a position of considerable power in a 2nd Downmarket Mussolini administration. As noted by Chris Walker over on Truthout, the dispossession of Palestinians has already fallen under Kushner the boy wonder's purview during his prior service in government:
"Notably, Kushner was instrumental in a plan to normalize relations between Israel and a number of Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East. That plan also included an outline for Israel to annex more illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, recognize Jerusalem as its capital, and continue to deny Palestinians the right of return."
Taken together with Trump's recent comments that he supports the IDF's mass murder campaign in Gaza, and that Israel had to "finish the problem" it seems fairly safe to say that a Trump administration would maximally support Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians with few questions asked, and little concern for international law. In my opinion, that's important news to share with the American people at length; maybe the reason mainstream corporate media in America doesn't see it that way is because once you've already sold out to support a genocidal military campaign of collective punishment against brown people half a world away, it doesn't really matter to you precisely *how* that genocide gets completed.
#Gaza #Genocide #Kushner #Trump

2024-03-21 00:17:07

Over the past six months and the course of an ongoing genocide, perpetrated by the government and military forces of Israel, against Palestinian people in Gaza, rubes and apologists have repeatedly insisted that American President Joe Biden simply cannot stop the mass murdering his government is financially and materially supporting. Well it turns out that U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has news for you folks - that's bullshit.
"Sanders Rips 'Fiction' That There's Nothing US Can Do to End Gaza Carnage"
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-gaza-leverage
"The U.S. government should make it clear that failure to open up access immediately and feed starving people will result in the Netanyahu government not getting another penny of U.S. taxpayer military aid," said Sanders (I-Vt.), who noted that "right now we have the incredible situation where a U.S. ally is using U.S. weapons and equipment to block the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid."
"And if that's not crazy," the senator added, "I don't know what is."
Look folks, I don't want to argue with you about whether or not cutting off aid and weapons shipments to a colonial apartheid nation engaging in a genocide would be enough to force Israel's hand here; I know it would be, but you're welcome to be a rube if you like.
What I am going to point out is that Sanders gave this speech in the Senate two weeks ago, on March 6th, and in that time Joe Biden has literally tried nothing more than begging Netanyahu to stop making him look bad in an election year. We're still sending Israel weapons and money, the genocide is still ongoing. I'm not interested in your hypothetical opinions about what would and wouldn't work so long as the president is committed to trying nothing at all and allowing the mass murder to continue. It is very clear that begging the fascist Israeli Prime Minister who is openly campaigning for Trump and against the Biden administration, is *not* working, and the cost of dragging your ass is being paid in the lives of Palestinians - including starving Palestinian children trying to survive a wholly predictable famine in the middle of a genocide.
That is, to put it politely, completely unacceptable.
#Gaza #Genocide #Colonialism #USImperialism

2024-03-20 22:22:20

Hey folks; want a new reason to hate the oil and gas industry? Of course you do! A recent investigative study shows that some of the most profitable fossil fuel corporations, including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies are raking in fistfulsofmoneyTM from providing fuel for the IDF's ongoing genocide in Gaza. Which is of course being paid for in part by U.S. aid money provided to Israel, even in the middle of said still ongoing genocide.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/14/global-oil-industry-impact-israel-gaza-war
“The countries and companies that have continued to supply oil to the Israeli military since the decision of the international court of justice are contributing to horrible human rights violations and may be complicit in genocide,” said David Boyd, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment.
“Oil firms must ensure they’re not in the business of helping to entrench Israel’s apartheid system or fueling war crimes and possible genocide in Gaza,” said Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s economic affairs director, adding that it was incumbent on every company with commercial ties to the Israeli military to do “due diligence”.
Boiling the planet like soup and conducting mass murder at the same time; that's your tax dollars and the oligarchy at work folks! Kinda brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "we did that" don't it?
#Gaza #Genocide #FossilFuels #Colonialism #Imperialism #Oligarchy

2024-03-20 06:57:45

- reply

And I guess a genuine thanks to the angry person in my replies for pinging me awake to see and write that update.
I'm sorry that I made you angry, and I just didn't see us going anywhere worth going in that conversation; especially if the link I shared you and what I wrote is something you perceived as hurling insults. I'm also sorry I couldn't play pretend with you, but I don't think anyone has 10 years to wait around for enough opportunities to stop fascism. I just care about other people, particularly marginalized people under the gun and I don't think it's super appropriate to pretend that "voting Blue down the entire ticket" is an actual solution to the problem at hand, given both the timescale involved and the headman's hard, rightward lurch on immigration and migrant rights:
https://truthout.org/articles/bidens-use-of-the-slur-illegal-underscores-his-rightward-lurch-on-immigration/
There's a lot posts I'd have let that comment slide by without a response; although I frankly would rather not talk about voting, your vote, or mine. I certainly don't begrudge anyone their vote for Biden, and I strongly suspect anyone voting for the other guy is only reading this to build a wish list. Your reply however, felt very inappropriate in this context and after mulling it over I think it's really two things. First, I would simply posit that we have vastly different theories on what represents an "acceptable" level of white supremacy in this context, and secondly we have very different opinions on how to affect change in our society. But I care about migrants and brown people, even in "Red States," and I can't pretend your advice would lead to protecting those people - certainly not on an acceptable timescale if you're conceding that it'll take 10 years of voting.
Please understand, I'm not hostile, and I'm not telling anyone not to vote, I'd just rather not talk to you about it and let me analyze the news. If people are more informed, I respect their agency to make choices; I'm not writing for team fascism out here. My apologies that we couldn't be better friends. Peace and good luck to you.
Imma get some sleep.

2024-03-19 19:20:53

6-3 fascist high SCOTUS removes stay and allows Texas to begin enforcing fascist immigration law Senate Bill 4:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/19/politics/supreme-court-allows-texas-to-begin-enforcing-controversial-immigration-law/index.html
The number of things wrong with this ruling is extensive, including the Court's argument that removing the stay and allowing Texas to enforce SB4 is merely business as usual, and a procedural matter for the highest court in the land; which is a fancy legal way of saying "we're going to allow a white supremacist governor to police brown people and upend federalism but we don't want to be blamed for it."
Beyond that however, there are two major problems here. Firstly the law allows for the arrest and detention, by a state openly embracing white supremacy and fascism, of people *suspected* of entering or re-entering the country illegally - which is a recipe for legalized persecution of pretty much every brown person in Texas:
"Senate Bill 4, signed into law by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in December, immediately raised concerns among immigration advocates of increased racial profiling as well as detentions and attempted deportations by state authorities in Texas, where Latinos represent 40% of the population."
The second issue of course, is that this law effectively implodes the very foundations of federalism and the division of powers between the US government, and state authorities. This overturns more than a century of legal precedent in which the federal government has control over who may enter the U.S. and deportations, placing authority to do so in the hands of reactionary state officials hell bent on persecuting brown people and maintaining a white ethno-state; no matter how many lives that upends. This direct assault on federal authority is likely a precursor to ultimately overturning Arizona v. United States and declaring open season on migrants, and even American citizens who happen to look like migrants.
"The law, Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, “upends the federal-state balance of power that has existed for over a century, in which the National Government has had exclusive authority over entry and removal of noncitizens.”
Look the fact of the matter is, there is no way to tell the difference between a migrant illegally residing in the United States, and a citizen who just happens to be brown or of Latinx descent, until you detain that person and demand papers/begin an investigation. Thus Senate Bill 4 (and the copy-cat laws that will no doubt spawn from it) is objectively a white supremacist law that empowers states, many of whom are run by openly fascist legislatures at this point, to fuck with brown people for just existing. That is the law's intended purpose, and regardless of how the courts intend to rule at a later date, as of right now, Texas is free to start policing people based entirely on their skin color; this is a power that is specifically not entrusted to states and state policing authorities for a reason - because we know you racist crackers are going to use it to fuck with brown people at every possible opportunity.
And the reason SCOTUS is allowing it even temporarily, is almost certainly because they know that once you let that genie out of the bottle, it's going to be awfully hard to put it back in.
#WhiteSupremacy #SCOTUS #SB4 #Texas

2024-03-16 01:40:45

Hey, speaking of rich people and complicit corporate media, did you know two of the three richest men on Earth (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos) and the family that own's Trader Joes, are currently trying to get American courts to declare the core functions of the National Labor Relations Act unconstitutional, and the mainstream media is literally barely reporting it?
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-02-22-americas-richest-men-ask-courts-make-unions-illegal/
Although this story seems complex, the essential point here is that these rich maggots who have both a vested interest in stopping unions, and own companies with a documented history of unionbusting, want to stop the board that rules on NLRA cases, from hearing cases in their administrative courts. This matters because these courts allow in particular, workers who've been fired for organizing unions by big corporations like Amazon, Tesla, and Trader Joe's to quickly get a ruling that stops those companies from union busting by simply axing the organizers. The rich guys, using essentially the same arguments that were refuted by SCOTUS almost 90 years ago, would prefer those cases be heard in federal court, because it would *guarantee* "that by the time they reach the bench, those organizing campaigns will have become a dim memory." Furthermore, it's entirely possible that the richest folks in the oligarch class won't stop there, and might even ask a very anti-union SCOTUS to literally toss the NLRA altogether, leaving workers entirely exposed to whatever predations these rich maggots want to enact upon them.
In other words, and to quote the author of this article:
"in a time of stratospheric economic inequality and overwhelming public support for unions, they want the courts to strike down workers’ right to collective bargaining? One of the fundamental landmarks of the New Deal? Shall we negate all of America’s mid-20th-century social progress? All of Roosevelt’s legacy? How about we revisit World War II and surrender to the Nazis and Japan?"
Naturally, you would assume this might be bigger news than it has been. But the truth is, corporate media in America has a vested class interest in keeping this one on the downlow because they too are owned by rich (mostly) American oligarchs; in the case of a paper like the Washington post, their boss, Jeff Bezos, is literally one of the oligarchs bringing the case before the courts through his EvilCorpTM, the American multinational corporation and technology company Amazon. When the same guys busting the unions, own the papers, it's clearly possible to gut the right to collectively bargain with barely a whisper leaking out into the mainstream discourse. In the immortal words of Frank Zappa, "they just takes care of number one, an' number one ain't you; you ain't even number two..."
#NLRA #Unions #ElonMusk #Amazon #TraderJoes #UnionBusting #Neofeudalism

2024-03-12 00:54:00

*shrugs*
I block lots of people for just being kind of an asshole; I might even post a snide anonymized remark about it. If I start typing out full handles and providing screenshots, it's not "the drama" and it's not about my personal antipathy towards someone's account.
Dunno what else to tell you. You can read right? Then do it.

2024-03-11 00:49:11

If you've been cruising the Fediverse recently, you've no doubt seen a number of amusing posts under the hashtag #CDCSays, about why the U.S. Center for Disease Control is probably trying to kill you for capitalism; in particular as that relates to their updated COVID isolation guidelines. While these posts are objectively hilarious, the simple truth is that these aren't really jokes, and pretty much everyone who understands this virus and how it works, thinks the CDC has sold us all down the river for capitalists, corporations, and the bosses, to keep the fuckbarrelTM churning.
Of course, there's only so much these folks can communicate in a joke on social media, so today I thought I'd share a recent article by Reina Sultan on Self.com. Inside, she talks to three medically qualified experts who work in this field about why the CDC's new guidelines, and the drastic reduction of the isolation period recommended if you've contracted COVID, are wishful thinking at best and quite possibly capitalist death cult propaganda:
https://www.self.com/story/cdc-new-covid-19-isolation-guidelines
Although it's definitely worth reading the entire short article, let's look at some important highlights here for folks who're absolutely not gonna click on a link about COVID because they'd rather pretend everything is fine:
- reducing COVID isolation recommendations from 5 days, to 24 hours "if you’ve been fever-free" and "your symptoms are improving" will "likely make more people sick—and this approach increasingly places the burden of public health on individual people, which is dangerous for everyone, but especially for those at a higher risk of complications from the virus."
- changing testing from a way to determine if you can leave isolation, to merely something you might want to use to "assist" your decision making, is a terrible idea.
- COVID is most certainly not over; "wastewater analysis data suggests there are still more than 760,000 new cases of COVID a day in the US—meaning roughly 1 in 63 people are actively infectious."
- Michael Hoerger, PhD, MSCR, says "There is no evidence to suggest that these waves (of COVID infections) are becoming smaller on average over time, or that we're having fewer waves.”
- Lara Jirmanus, MD, MPH says "that the CDC’s messaging implicitly communicates two falsehoods: that COVID has “ceased to be a threat,” and that it “stops being transmitted when people stop having a fever.” According to Dr. Jirmanus, "infectiousness has little to do with specific symptoms, since you can be sick (and contagious) without a fever and with few, mild, or even no symptoms at all. And if you’re testing positive on rapid tests, you’re very likely still able to infect others, even if you feel fine."
- Shortening the isolation period "supports economic interests and is not in the interest of protecting health." Yes, this means that the bosses and capitalists are okay with making you sick and maybe even killing you, so they can keep extracting wealth from our labor.
- In fact, Kaitlin Sundling, MD, PhD says the CDC’s updated recommendations are moving in the wrong direction. “COVID isolation should be expanded, not reduced or eliminated. There is no change in the scientific evidence around COVID transmission that would support reducing the recommended isolation period below five days... Extending isolation beyond five days would be a safer approach, both to prevent viral spread and to allow people adequate time to recover.” Ideally, she recommends you isolate "for 10 to 14 days, if you have that option, and take two rapid tests with negative results at least 24 hours apart before going about your daily life as usual again" but acknowledges that without sick leave, this will be impossible for many workers, who she then advises to wear "a well-fitting respirator and limit in-person activities only to what is essential.”
Additionally, these experts point out that long COVID is real, remains poorly understood, and is therefore something we should absolutely not be fucking around with as a society by continuing to "let er rip" and reducing protective measures; which is precisely what the CDC has done here with its joke ass updated isolation guidelines. Finally, all three experts also remind us that these policy updates all seem to be designed with non-disabled, non-immunocompromised people in mind; which is pretty alarming when you realize that roughly “4 out of 10 Americans have chronic diseases that put them at higher risk of COVID.” All of which just reinforces the argument I've been making for a while; rich people and their captured regulatory bodies will absolutely toss disabled people, sick people, and the elderly into the furnace for five points a share.
Look folks, I get that we're all tired of this virus and this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but these are highly qualified doctors telling you in so many words that "it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you." And the CDC at least, sure is.
#COVID #Capitalism #CDC

2024-03-10 02:32:26

- reply

Because sooner or later someone is going to chastise me for helping Trump, here is the post I made immediately prior to publishing this analysis, where I rip the corporate media for not even bothering to tell you Trump *ALSO* supports the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people by the IDF; as I said, this is a bipartisan position in US politics.
https://social.treehouse.systems/@AnarchoNinaAnalyzes/112068775354322116

2024-03-10 02:22:52

So what exactly do I mean by "supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people is a bipartisan position in American politics?" To answer that question, let's take a look at a story that *was* reported by the corporate media complex, but you might have missed if you haven't paid to remove the paywall from Washington Post stories online. As it turns out, and despite the Biden administration's recent halfhearted attempts to mitigate the fallout from supporting war crimes and the extermination of children in Gaza, the United States has sent over 100 shipments of weapons to Israel since October 7th; the date of the Hamas attack and the beginning of the IDF's now inarguably genocidal response.
https://truthout.org/articles/report-us-has-secretly-sent-israel-over-100-weapons-shipments-in-last-150-days/
Look folks, this isn't a rumor, or propaganda; these shipments were revealed to Congress by administration officials in a recent classified meeting and are thus, now a matter of publicly reported fact. Although many news outlets have tried to downplay the nature of these shipments, these arms deals included precision-guided munitions, bunker busters, numerous types of bombs, and buttloads of firearms. When mathed out over the course of the "conflict" (that's a funny word for a genocide, isn't it?) this amounts to roughly one arms shipment every 1.5 days; which is an alarming amount of weaponry to push into an ongoing "conflict," particularly from a country that supposedly maintains a policy of *not* shipping arms under those circumstances; even if we all know that policy is malleable and not really worth the paper it's printed on.
Furthermore, while it's not openly discussed in the Truthout article, I think it's very clear that spreading these shipments out over 100 installments represents a clear effort by the Biden administration to actively conceal their material support for a genocide in Gaza; if they'd simply put them all together, they would have been required by law to inform Congress of their actions far sooner than they ultimately did. Instead, they've managed to publicly maintain a dangerous double game of pretending they oppose the violent "excesses" of Netanyahu's genocidal campaign in Gaza, while directly supplying the bombs and weapons the IDF is using to conduct it. Many Americans saw progressive members of the Democratic Party holding up signs saying "Stop Sending Bombs" during Biden's State of the Union speech and had no idea what they were talking about, as a direct result of this deception.
At this point, I think it's far past time for the American establishment, including the Democratic Party to cut the bullshit. You can't say you're opposed to war crimes and genocide while you're funding the US ally conducting them, and supplying the arms required to do so. Bombing hospitals and engineering a famine that is killing thousands of Palestinian children is a type of collective punishment the American people would recognize as monstrous if anyone bothered to tell them it was on purpose; and it was, because when you pursue policies that you are warned repeatedly will cause these outcomes, you don't get to pretend it's an accident later.
Whether you believe Biden can stop Netanyahu's mass murder campaign or not, I think we can all agree that it's high time the American government stopped supplying the weapons necessary to conduct it. Anything less is participating in that genocide in a very real, and obviously material way; no matter how many speeches you give about how unfortunate the consequences of those actions are.
#Gaza #Genocide #Israel #USImperialism

2024-03-10 01:23:23

Frankly, I don't think it's much of a secret that corporate media has for the most part, egregiously drop the ball when covering noted fascist and former US President Donald Trump in our current political environment; in fact, I'd suggest that they've spilled more ink talking about their own failures in this regard, than they have discussing how they intent to address the problem. Many observers have chalked this up to a series of mistakes, or structural deficiencies in the modern news industry, but when most of the mainstream media remains completely silent while Trump openly endorses a genocide in Gaza, being conducted by the military of US ally Israel, well "oops, we screwed up" simply doesn't hold enough water.
https://truthout.org/articles/trump-encourages-genocide-against-palestinians-saying-finish-the-problem/
The short story here is that just before sweeping the GOP Primaries on Super Tuesday, a Fox News host asked Trump directly "are you on-board with the way the [Israel Defense Force] is taking the fight to Gaza?” Trump, who has by and large avoiding having to answer questions on the subject as part of a clear political strategy to appeal to American voters tired of the imperialism that he himself nevertheless supports, answered: "You’ve got to finish the problem," and then noted his administration's vociferous support for the settler colonial, apartheid state of Israel and its horrifying actions against Palestinians in Gaza.
"In additional comments regarding Israel’s attacks, Trump appeared unwilling to differentiate between the governing body of Hamas and the Palestinian population more generally. He went on to claim that, were he still president, the October 7 attack never would have happened, and that Hamas only attacked Israel because of Biden’s purported weakness."
Despite the fact that this is a US presidential candidate, and a former American president no less, implicitly endorsing genocide in broad daylight on Fox News, these statements didn't merit so much as a comment in the vast majority of mainstream news outlets; at least in America. This is of course because supporting a genocide in Gaza is in fact a mainstream, bipartisan position in American politics and a media complex that has been eagerly justifying violence against Palestinian people, including thousands of children, as a response to the actions of Hamas, has no reasonable way to criticize Trump for simply upping the stakes with more overtly genocidal rhetoric. This is the idea that "if we're all guilty, then no one is guilty" playing out on a grand scale; even if that means failing to report on Trump's bloodthirst and genocidal transgressions entirely.
This isn't about the structure of the news industry, and it's not about the mistakes of a media class that takes its eye of the ball far too frequently for the health of a "liberal democracy" under assault by the forces of fascism. They didn't tell you that Trump endorsed wiping out the Palestinian people because the media itself is already engaged in manufacturing consent to accomplish that very same objective. This wasn't a failure of journalism, but rather a failure of human decency; and that decision was made on purpose.
#Gaza #Genocide #Trump #Media

2024-03-09 23:04:16

In news that really should qualify as a "water is wet" moment, it turns out that contrary to the beliefs of evangelists and folks who have a vested financial interested in selling you so-called "AI" products, LLMs and "artificial intelligence" are not going to save us from climate crisis, but are rather directly contributing to the problem and actively accelerating the heat death of a planet that can support 8B+ humans:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/07/ai-climate-change-energy-disinformation-report
Look, quite frankly I don't think you should have to be told that a product astronomically increasing energy demands in the Pig Empire, that requires an obscene amount of water just to keep the servers cool enough to operate, and allows climate science deniers and conspiracy theorist to generate a buttload of cheap propaganda and garbage disinformation, is not going to *help* us fight climate catastrophe. Given however that big market players who are actively trying to sell you AI products, companies like Google, are openly lying about its ability to do so however, I guess it's necessary to keep producing and sharing articles like this one.
The plain truth here is that capitalists, corporations, and techbro fascists have long since decided that short term profits matter more to them than whether or not the rest of us boil to death on a rapidly overheating planet. Indeed, a desire to lock in that dynamic is almost certainly why all these rich people are paying to install fascism throughout the entire "West." AI products themselves are ultimately about locking in a fascist social order that precludes the possibility of change or human agency, because if you have the ability or the knowledge to affect change, you'll probably stop them from running us off the ecological cliff in pursuit of endless profits.
These folks will, and are, lying to you because all they care about is that filthy lucre, and they have long since bought up your states and regulatory bodies that should be warning you about this and working to stop them. It's not just a question of "don't believe the hype" but rather understanding that reactionary capitalists are not going to help you save a planet they've already decided to burn to ash for 5 points a share.
#ClimateCatastrophe #AI #Google #Disinformation

2024-03-09 22:13:38

Here's one for the grim irony file:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68477735
A 62 year old German man received 217 shots of COVID vaccine over the course of 29 months through private treatment, and he's... absolutely fine. In fact, there's a good chance he's doing better than most because, perhaps unsurprisingly, there's no evidence he has ever contracted COVID.
So what's the grim part? Well the story was uncovered because the city of Magdeburg suspected fraud, and opened an investigation. It seems likely, but difficult to prove in court, that the man has been acquiring and selling proof of vaccination receipts to folks hopped up on reactionary conspiracy theories and afraid of getting the COVID vaccine; ultimately, no charges were filed.
As always, the lesson here is that getting your public health information from billionaire reactionary techbros on Twitter, fascist QAnon websites, and your drunk racist uncle's Facebook account is no way to stay informed - and in the long run it just might kill you, or at least leave you exposed to serious health consequences.
#Covid #Vaccines #PublicHealth #QAnon

2024-03-06 02:49:03

After the 2008 financial crisis (which really should more accurately be called the 2008 Fuck Around And Find Out Event), many observers wrote that rich speculators on the stock market had benefited, but it would be everyday people who paid the cost, for generations to come.
Most folks tend to assume these observations were about lost jobs and incomes, or future taxation to pay for the bailouts big companies got but everyday people didn't. The truth however is that corporate America and the investors who own the companies we work for weren't satisfied with billion dollar bailouts, and saw the aftermath of the crisis as a way to fundamentally alter their relationship with the labor class, to the benefit of the folks who own everything, and the detriment of those of us who work for a living. A good example of this would be the American auto industry, where only a generation ago, workers were able to retire at 55 with healthcare and a good pension; benefits that were clawed back in the wake of post-crisis reorganization of the industry, and simply never returned.
Of course in a humane society, this might be where we'd expect the government to step in; if not to force corporations to provide good pensions, to at least to help people retire with dignity and enough money to survive. That isn't how it actually works right now, but any reasonable person who doesn't want to see grandma eating tins of cat food in her 70's certainly thinks it should. Turns out that Bernie Sanders and eight other Democrat Senators agree, and now the Senator from Vermont is trying to publicly shame Congress to do something about it:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/retirement-crisis-2667426533
"In his op-ed, Sanders wrote that the loss of pension and fixed benefit plans among American workers—60% of whom had them in the early 1980s, compared to just 4% in 2023—has led to a 23% poverty rate among senior citizens, one of the highest rates compared to other wealthy countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development."
The plain and simple truth here is that as the Baby Boomer generation ages out of the workforce, America is speeding towards a retirement crisis; more and more Americans are retiring without *any* benefits accrued during a lifetime of laboring for capital, and simultaneously politicians from across the political spectrum are trying to raise the retirement age and gut, if not eliminate social security benefits. This isn't an oncoming train, it's more like an avalanche of boulders speeding towards our collective reality; and there will be a very real, and very predictable cost for the vast majority of Americans. A cost paid in miserable existences for seniors, and very real casualties in our society.
The bill Sanders and his allies in the Senate are proposing, the Social Security Expansion Act, would work towards addressing this crisis primarily by forcing the wealthy to pay more into the Social Security payroll tax - which is currently capped in such a way to ensure billionaires pay only a tiny fraction of their fair share into the system.
This is a problem that isn't going to solve itself, and Congress has the ability to address that problem with ready-crafted legislation they could pass right now. Will they? Don't bet your retirement on it buster...
#USPolitics #Retirement #BernieSanders #SocialSecurity

2024-03-05 22:56:09

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PS: keep all this in mind the next time they tell you public healthcare is bad because it "forces Doctors to be slaves and work for free" - a thing that has never happened anywhere in any public health care system I've heard of, but sure seems to be happening in American privatized hospitals run by Steward Health.

2024-03-05 22:51:52

I generally don't like to write about articles, about other articles, but in this case I'm going to make an exception for this piece by Cory Doctorow, "When Private Equity Destroys Your Hospital" because I think he strikes at the heart of the issue in a way that the original writers at The American Prospect don't, or are afraid to.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/
Imagine for a moment that I told you a story about an open hospital that didn't have any hospital supplies because it refused to pay for them, where medical equipment and even the Pepsi machines were being repossessed by creditors, and staff (including doctors) were working without pay because their checks keep bouncing. Furthermore, imagine I told you that this hospital literally had human excrement running from the walls, and lost an entire floor to occupation by roughly five thousand wild bats. You might be tempted to think I was talking about dystopian fiction, or a place located far outside the wealthiest nation on Earth, but of course I'm not - everything I wrote above is about an American hospital in Florida, the Rockledge Regional Medical Center.
As Doctorow notes, this real life horror story is brought to you by Steward Health, a Private Equity-backed company that currently controls 32 hospitals all over the United States. That bit about Private Equity is important, because if you want to know how a hospital can be turned into a nightmare death trap in the way Rockledge Regional has been, you're going to need to follow the money; specifically, the money being looted out of RRMC by Steward Health and its CEO Ralph de la Torre - a man once hailed as a "genius disruptor" who is now mostly famous for paying himself huge bonuses while running companies into the ground.
Given that operating a hospital like Tony's gang busts out a gambler's sporting goods store in an episode of the Sopranos shouldn't be a successful business model, you might find yourself asking "how are they going to get away with this?" This would be a good question twenty-five years ago, but today of course the answer is, complicit regulatory officials (in this case Florida Republicans), and the reality that if you just buy up *all* the hospitals and start looting them, eventually the government will have to bail you out or simply leave everyday people with no hospitals. Furthermore, as Cory so eloquently notes, this is not an aberration, but the actual business model of Private Equity firms buying up all sorts of businesses and public goods in our society while promising to "disrupt" whole industries. Far from improving services or medical care, the PE industry model of operation simply loots vital businesses like the RRMC before selling them off to even more shady PE companies that loot them again; often this process occurs multiple times as predatory capital squeezes every last ounce out of their purchases, no matter who it harms.
Should this be a crime? You bet your ass it should be, but legally speaking, it really isn't; because you live in a country that facilitates the monstrous accumulation of wealth by rich businessmen, even at the cost of everyday people's lives. You should read the entire piece, but Doctorow's money quote is worth reprinting here:
"The PE sector is a reminder that the crimes people commit for money far outstrip the crimes they commit for ideology. Even the most ideological killers are horrified by the murders their profit-motivated colleagues commit."
#PrivateEquity #AntiCapitalism #Healthcare #Florida

2024-03-04 13:09:51

Folks, as a general rule, I'm not one for drama, or follow policing, which is why I didn't originally name the person in question. They are not "a liberal" or a fascist, or at least they don't present as such.
It's a popular "left wing" account named LA Legault dissents. Several months ago they showed up in my replies on Jorts, to defend the Kids Online Safety Act; a horrifying bill that will give fascists who have OPENLY ADMITTED they want to use it to police access to LGBTQ content, and give themselves the right to keep young people from even LEARNING about LGBTQ identities, while simultaneously continuing their quest to conflate LGBTQ people existing as sexualizing children and child abuse. As you can imagine, that conversation did NOT go well, and after at most two posts trying to explain to her how harmful what she was doing was, I blocked her.
In the time since then, she has become rather popular out here for her good takes, particularly on Gaza. This morning, she followed me on THIS account. So I PM'd her to ask her "what are you doing here and has your opinion on KOSA changed" and her reply was once again, some bullshit about CSAM and "protecting children" - which is literally the exact same thing the fascists say to justify this bill they ADMIT is ultimately about criminalizing LGBTQ content and identities. The Heritage Foundation LOVES this bill.
This person claims to be a (former) journalist, and I can and have already, produced more than a dozen articles explaining that everything I'm saying here, about this bill, is correct. This means I know she could have found all this out herself, and indeed SHOULD have done so by now. I do not care if she's doing it "for the children" and that's the EXACT same excuse the nazis give for this monstrous shit. I even tried to give her some room to grow; she didn't take advantage of that. So I blocked her again.
You can do whatever you want, follow whoever you want, feel however you want about this person. I'm not going to come after you because you're fond of your new friend. But I do not think she is my friend, and I do think folks like her are quite dangerous to my community. I did the subtweet thing PRECISELY because this is both serious, and also because I didn't want to be follow policing my friends; who seem to love her... fairly basic takes. I don't trust her, and I definitely don't want her following me or in my mentions. After that, you can do whatever you want about this, including nothing at all. I respect your agency, but she caught that block, TWICE, for a very good reason in my opinion.
I do not particularly TRUST people who believe Marsha Blackburn and the Heritage Foundation are doing things that harm and demonize the LGBTQ community, "for the children." If you want to believe she's just a rube, that's your business. I do not believe that, and given that we're in the middle of an ongoing pogrom against LGBTQ people, that's starting with trans people (hint: I'm trans) and is explicitly being framed as protecting against "sexualization" and "abuse" against your kids, by even TALKING about queer identities and being openly LGBTQ anywhere kids MIGHT be - I cannot afford to give people like that the benefit of the doubt.
IMHO? She's dogshit. You can feel however you like about her.

2024-03-04 10:01:29

Politely, I consider supporting KOSA sufficiently dangerous enough to LGBTQ people, particularly young people, that it's a major red flag and a reason not to have you around me. The fact that you'd still be making "for the children" arguments at me long after it's been exposed that the bill will be used to police LGBTQ content and prevent queer kids from even LEARNING about gay identities makes you a dangerous person to keep around. You call yourself a journalist, I expect you to have done some reading on the subject; at least enough to know that Marsha f*cking Blackburn does not have the welfare of children at heart; particularly not LGBTQ kids.
Into the trash you go; for the second time.
That is all.
#SubtweetSomeoneIJustBlocked

2024-03-03 23:11:41

Related to the last RT:
I mean I find it beyond absurd that all the rich people and public leaders telling us to get back to work, gutting Covid prevention policies, and actively gaslighting people for being "afraid" of a virus that is still killing gobs of people, aren't getting more general pushback when they're certainly still taking significant precautions to protect THEMSELVES from the virus. For example, the guys at Davos were sure worried about it:
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/billionaires-at-davos-dont-think
And like folks are going to call me conspiratorial for saying this, but I don't really give much of a rat's ass. The fact is the media is helping shepherd you back to "productivity" on behalf of a rich ruling class that clearly doesn't care if you die; and they're doing so because these media organizations are also owned by rich people, who also have a vested interest in keeping the f*ck barrel running at all costs because it makes them money. That's not a conspiracy, it's just observable reality; the rich guys don't care if you die, but they sure do care if THEY die and that says a lot about why the hellworld is the way it is right now.
If randos on social media, and independent bloggers can figure this out, you know every damn news room in the country knows it. And they're just not telling you because they consider protecting the f*ck barrel more important; or at least, the people who cut their checks do. If that's a conspiracy theory, then capitalism itself is a conspiracy and there's nothing theoretical about it.
#Covid #Capitalism #DeathCult #CDC

2024-03-03 21:01:03

And over in Canada...
The province (like a state, but bigger land mass) run by oil and gas companies with a pinhead fascist sitting in the Premier's chair is running out of water. This is definitely being driven by climate change, but it's exacerbated by the fact that the region this province is in has historically been extremely dry, but has enjoyed an unprecedented wet period over the 100+ years that it was mostly built up and occupied by white people from the east in. The solutions here look something like "stop burning fossil fuels and using up the water to mine more fossil fuels and stop encouraging people to move to Alberta because even the current population numbers are not sustainable if the province returns to its historically traditional water/moisture levels."
So naturally the oil companies/fascist party running the place is doing more fossil fuel mining, actively trying to block renewable energy initiatives, threatening to sue the federal government if *it* does anything about climate change and telling folks to move to Alberta to escape "wokeness" or some sh*t.
It's a death cult man. I dunno what else to say.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2024/02/19/Alberta-Brutal-Water-Reckoning/
#CanPoli #ClimateCatastrophe #Alberta #WaterIsLife

2024-03-03 03:09:49

Back in late August of last year, I wrote a short piece on my website that analyzed an article by Evan Urquhart over on Assigned Media, and used that analysis to help discuss the larger reality that the New York Times has been actively selling the justification for an anti-trans pogrom in America, for quite some time. I'll put a link to that piece in the replies below this post, but the plain truth is that despite protestations from critics of my piece insisting I was being alarmist and uncharitable, it seems that the elected fascists actually trying to codify an anti-trans pogrom into the law, certainly noticed the NYT's efforts in this regard; and clearly they agree:
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2024/02/new-york-times-pamela-paul-anti-trans-bills/
The tl;dr here is that while the Times and its defenders pretend they're simply trying to present "both sides" of trans issues (as if my existence, is an issue you get to "have a side" about) when they publish hatemongers like Pamela Paul and insist they're "just asking questions" and "protecting the children," the GOP/ADF/think tank bigots trying to ban trans medical care, and even trans identities, are now citing these articles in their anti-trans bills and legal arguments. Furthermore, careful analysis of the articles the Times have published clearly indicates that the paper as a whole, seems ideologically aligned *against* trans care; a fact greatly appreciated by bigoted fascist pressure groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, aka the same people who helped strip abortion rights from American women by helping to overturn Roe v Wade last year.
As this article also notes, both the efforts of the Times, and the efforts of bigoted Republican-aligned political pressure groups, are largely based on disinformation, fearmongering, and debunked arguments from other bigots; creating a sort of feedback loop of hatred and bigotry that is now starting to drive Republican policy - all officially stamped with the legitimacy provided by those arguments appearing in America's paper of record. Quite frankly, I don't think it should have taken a legalist hate-group like the ADF and folks who support conversion therapy citing Pamela Paul's articles for people to see that this was bigoted bullshit and an active campaign to demonize trans people and trans care (particularly for young people.) Trans writers, medical observers, and anyone with a modicum of sense has been telling you so for a good long while; but when the nazis are lovingly citing your "research" in hate bills, the mask has clearly come fully off and no amount of blubbering "both sides" excuses from the Times can hide that anymore.
The New York Times is selling an anti-trans pogrom in progress; just like I, and many others told you, months, if not years ago.
#TransRights #Transphobia #nytimes #GOP #ADF

2024-03-03 02:29:05

So, we've mostly been on a pretty bummer trip through the hellworld on my timeline here today, so let's stop for a minute to enjoy some good news, albeit, of significantly lesser consequence than all the bad news we've been analyzing.
I, like you, have often heard the refrain from mainstream commentators and feckless politicians that they wish someone could "do something" about reactionaries in office promoting racist, eliminationist, and often fascist conspiracy theories in public discourse; usually with an implied suggestion, that nothing can be done. Guess what? Turns out that's literally bullshit.
https://www.altrightdelete.news/p/actions-have-consequences?r=bin0&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
the tl;dr here is that Michigan State Representative Josh Striver retweeted a "Great Replacement" fascist/antisemitic conspiracy meme, and when confronted about it, doubled down, refused to apologize, then thanked Tucker Carlson and Jack Posobiec (known fascist propagandists) for posting about the "Great Replacement." In response, the Dem-controlled statehouse took away Striver’s staff and committee assignments. No fuss, no games, no both-sides, they just stripped him of his perks and left him in the corner to cry about it.
Is this a big win for anyone? Not really. He's still in office, but thankfully the world has to hear a lot less from him now. What's important here is that Michigan Democrats, who have more than a little experience with proto-fascist militia groups and conspiracy mongers, actually TOOK A F*CKING STAND, and imposed real consequences for spreading racist, antisemitic conspiracy theories while holding office. It's not going to stop fascism, but throwing up your hands and saying "we can't do anything, he's elected" sure hasn't stopped fascists in American political life either.
The sad truth here, is that this is a bare minimum, opening salvo sort of resistance to fascism and fascist ideology, and the fact that our leaders, media, and influencers in the public discourse have by and large not even TRIED to chase these people out of public life and hold them accountable in any way they are able, is a big part of why we're staring down a fascist takeover, and going into an election season facing off against a normalized fascist movement growing in power and acceptance. If you don't take action, to prove that things like the "Great Replacement Theory" are unacceptable, then uninformed folks who aren't paying close attention start to get the idea that the nazis might have a point, or at least are allowed to say that. It takes action, however small, to reinforce the reality that this is unacceptable. The rest of the country and indeed, the broader "West," could learn a thing or two from fed-up Michigan state party Democrats.
#USPolitics #Fascism #Michigan #conspiracytheories

2024-03-03 00:04:26

Here's a quick one for the "every fascist accusation is actually a confession" files. You know how fascists are always describing a secret plot by "wealthy elites" to push Marxist ideology, demonize Christian conservatives, and reshape society according to the whims of stinking rich, ideologically-motivated power brokers? Yeah, that's bullshit and there is no "Big Marxism" trying to "trans your kids."
What isn't bullshit however is that there ARE a number of fantastically wealthy RIGHT wing power brokers, spending literally billions of dollars to push America to the right, prevent structural change, and protect the capitalist "right" to extract profit even if it burns the planet to ash - and they're not at all shy about pushing the country towards fascism to get there either.
https://www.propublica.org/article/barre-seid-heartland-institute-hillsdale-college-gmu
This lengthy ProPublica expose from 2022 takes a look at one such power broker, Barre Seid, and his $1.6 billion dollar quest to fund right wing political objectives like climate science denial, ending abortion rights, "libertarian" and pro-corporate economic polices, restricting voting rights, stopping public healthcare, empowering winger think tanks to control public policy, funding noted elite winger apparatchik factory Hillsdale College, naming a library after dead fascist SCOTUS judge Antonin Scalia, and so forth. Amusingly enough, he does NOT support a trade war with China like so many other influential reactionaries in US politics do; probably because it's harmful to his and his companies' bottom lines.
You can read more about the guy in this article, but what's important to understand here is that there *IS* a plot to transform America at the whims of rich people, but they aren't "the left," they're dogsh*t winger billionaires like Barre Seid; and he is not alone. Furthermore, despite being in his 90's, his charitable donations to "Big Capitalism" and "Big Make America a Fascist Theocracy" will ensure he's still ruining your life and shaping your society in ways harmful to everyone but rich winger maggots, long after he shuffles off his mortal coil.
#USPolitics #DonorClass #BarreSeid #RightWing

2024-03-02 23:24:32

Although I can't say I'm surprised, I most confess that I still find it quite alarming how readily American society and the larger discourse will fall for disingenuous nonsense from a fascist with a university degree; so long as he wears a nice suit and uses a sufficient quantity of five dollar words to hide his odious ideals and beliefs. Indeed, in this case I'm openly asking myself just how many times noted sh*tbag nazi "academic" Chris Rufo has to be exposed, before the mainstream American public stops taking his grievances and observations at face value.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/31/rightwing-activist-christopher-rufo-ties-scientific-racism-journal
The tl;dr here is that Rufo, who is closely aligned with Ron DeSantis, and helped spearhead the plot to chase former Harvard University president Claudine Gay out of public life, is, to the surprise of no one who has been paying attention, a frothing white supremacist who gleefully supports the work of other frothing white supremacists. Which will undoubtedly shock (sarcastic eyeroll) all the rubes and dupes who keep having him on their TV shows, podcasts, and panels while allowing him to present himself as a proponent of “colorblind equality” and a concerned critic of "wokeism" in our society - as if those things, by themselves, didn't make it extremely clear what side he's on and how reactionary his politics are.
At this point, Rufo's fascist ideology and propaganda has been exposed so many times, it's almost not worth the effort to actually dig down into individual examples of such; but in the interest of informing the larger public, you can toss this Jan 31st Guardian article onto the pile. Please do note however, that there's a lot more examples of why this guy is a fricking nazi available online, and the fact that *anyone* continues to take this muppet seriously, and he's still welcome at academic conferences and in professional life, is in and of itself damning evidence of America's larger embrace of fascism and unwillingness to hold clean-cut white guys with a thesaurus accountable for supporting it.
#Fascism #USPolitics #ChrisRufo #whitesupremacy

2024-03-02 21:05:13

As I've written on numerous occasions, fascist movements in our society represent and prosecute a fundamentally revanchist position in the larger body politic. What that means in this context, is that they are constantly seeking to "claw back" social progress and re-litigate previously settled issues surrounding social progress; to turn back the clock to a before time where reactionary thought on a given issue was given widespread credence, even though these battles have already been fought and especially because the fascists lost those battles.
So what does that look like in context? How about a crypto-fascist podcaster, and a discredited fascist propagandist repurposing some of the same pseudoscience (read: not science) arguments they developed to spread Covid-denialism, to *checks notes* re-litigate the AIDS crisis debate in American society, from the 1980's.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg543y/joe-rogan-and-bret-weinstein-promote-aids-denialism-to-an-audience-of-millions
The podcaster in question is Joe Rogan, the propagandist in question is noted sh*tbag Bret Weinstein, and literally everything about this is ugly. The discussion centers around a (winger reactionary) book written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr (yeah, that piece of horse pucky) and attacks "party drugs," LGBTQ people and identities, the very real and very established science around HIV, drugs used to fight the AIDS crisis, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the proven fact that COVID is real; with brief stops along the way to promote conspiracy theories about the Jan 6th 2021 Trump coup attempt, and a shadowy secret "cabal" controlling the United States - which is more or less a half step away from traditional antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Naturally, anyone who survived the very public attempts to demonize folks suffering from HIV and use it as a wedge to attack LGBTQ lifestyles in the 80's, will recognize many of these talking points and arguments, but that is indeed more or less the point; they are actively seeing to relitigate those fights and reverse social progress in broader society, such as it is. It must also be mentioned that this podcast, which has millions of subscribers, was broadcast on Spotify, who recently paid Joe Rogan $250M for the privilege of sharing fascist bullshit like this and clearly does not give one single f*ck about who gets hurt in the process.
While it's certainly important to call out Rogan and Weinstein for what they're doing here, it is also unquestionably more important to understand what this all means in terms of the fascist project. With the extreme right increasingly becoming ascendant in America, it is clear that they intend to revive and re-weaponize every pre-existing conspiracy theory, and long debunked prejudicial arguments, to prosecute their war on marginalized people, the poor, and pretty much everyone who isn't a fascist - and American corporations are happy to allow them to do so, so long as it rakes in those clicks and listens for advertisers.
Needless to say, NONE of these arguments have any basis in fact, or science, but that's largely irrelevant to fascist conspiracy merchants - what they're trying to do is provide large swathes of the population with plausible deniability, and a form of permission, to begin isolating and eventually removing "the other" (read: non-fascists) from public life, perhaps even to justify killing them. And sadly, it appears to be working.
PS: please note that Vice is closing down its written journalism department and its archives may well be lost forever, so if you want to read this one, you should get to it now.
#Fascism #JoeRogan #bretweinstein #Propaganda

2024-03-02 04:36:32

Look, either it's a death cult, or an oligarchy; it might be both, but folks are going to have to stop arguing with me about this crap because at the point that you're using the law to block renewable energy to prop up oil and gas companies, on a boiling planet, we're well past believing in the "rational actors" your economics textbook lovingly told you about here.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/02/27/renewable-energy-sources-ban-map/72630315007/
"A nationwide analysis by USA TODAY revealed a trend that threatens to derail U.S. clean energy goals: local governments are banning new utility-scale wind and solar power faster than they’re building it."
#climatecatastrophe #Oil #Capitalism #uspolitics

2024-03-02 01:24:07

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Also, ht to @npub17z6…4mp8 for RTing this story into my timeline earlier today; she's a good follow, if anyone is asking my opinion on the subject.

2024-03-02 01:17:14

Going to keep this one short because as is noted in the article, I strongly suspect this bill will "die in committee" but I still think it's instructional to examine what the more extreme members of the American fascist coalition, particularly those in office, are seeking to codify in law. After all, as the Overton window keeps shifting right, plenty of ideas most of us assumed would never pass a vote have become law, and fascism itself is not a "chud rush" as imagined in popular culture, but rather a top-down, legalist political formulation - so knowing their intentions as they do seize more and more power, is quite useful.
So, let's head over to Missouri, the most Confederate midwestern state:
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/03/gop-bill-would-require-teachers-to-register-as-sex-offenders-if-they-support-trans-students/
"A Missouri Republican has introduced a bill that would make it a felony for teachers to support trans and gender-nonconforming students’ transitioning socially and force those found guilty to register as sex offenders.
First-term state Rep. Jamie Ray Gragg (R) introduced H.B. 2885 this week. The proposed law would make it a Class E felony to “contribute” to the social transition of transgender youth."
Yeah, you read that right, this freak wants to make it illegal to support trans kids, "whether the support is material, information, or other resources to a child regarding social transition." Furthermore, he'd like to permanently brand teachers or councilors who do so, as registered sex offenders; I couldn't make that up if I tried. Curiously enough, the bill explicitly acknowledges the difference between a person's "gender identity" and the "the gender *assumed* by the individual’s sex at birth" - emphasis mine. So it's not that this little nazi doesn't UNDERSTAND the issues surrounding trans identities, it's that he wants to make recognizing trans identities in a school setting a class E felony anyway, and through the force of law conflate supporting trans kids with sexual assault of a minor unapologetically, DESPITE knowing that this is all monstrous bullcrap.
I hate to keep quoting Maya Angelou every seven minutes, but when she's right, she's right.
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
#TransRights #Fascism #GOP #Missouri

2024-02-29 04:06:19

Folks, I'm absolutely not interested in hanging out with you, online, or otherwise, if you're posting about "the Plandemic." There are millions of dead people because of COVID; go sell crypto-fascist conspiracy theories elsewhere.

2024-02-27 05:25:42

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@npub1gmx…atcq Unquestionably better. "I mean sure, resist fascism, but not if it stops you from fucking over poor people and burning the planet to ash."

2024-02-27 05:21:40

*Wise lib voice*
"Of course the REAL opposition to fascism is when you purposely elevate the fascist GOP candidate to make sure you don't have to run against the progressive for California Senate...#Resist."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/26/adam-schiff-us-senate-seat-dianne-feinstein-california-steve-garvey
#uspolitics #capitalism #AdamSchiff #CaliforniaSenateRace

2024-02-11 00:42:32

Folks, do I look like a woman who has any more patience for your bullshit? Cause I don't FEEL like a woman who has any more patience for your bullshit.
https://cache.treehouse.systems/media_attachments/files/111/910/057/647/044/526/original/3f4f37d4d8485d18.jpg

2024-02-11 00:24:55

- reply

No, really tho, "it went a lot like this."
https://theconversation.com/historians-are-learning-more-about-how-the-nazis-targeted-trans-people-205622
#Fascism #Nazis #Bookburnings #HowItHappened

2024-02-10 21:52:10

"Where one burns books, one will soon burn people." - Heinrich Heine
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/missouri-republican-candidate-torches-lgbtq-inclusive-books-viral-vide-rcna137715
PS: if you're still wondering "how did Nazi Germany even happen" let me assure you, it went a lot like this.
#Fascism #USPolitics #Homophobia #BookBurnings #GOP