#and so is our government and education system

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Information board at the former border separating West and East Germany

Anyone who visits the zone border should know:

There is no enemy over there —

because there is Germany over there, Germans like us live there. What separates us – wire fences, control strips, mine barriers, watch towers, earth bunkers, barriers and roadblocks – is not a border, but an expression of arbitrariness and fear of those in power. These rulers have been forced upon part of our people by the Soviet occupying powers. What becomes visible in the zone boundary is the suffering of the population with their longing for law and freedom – for when would a government have ever had to capture happy and free citizens behind walls and death strips?

Nonetheless:

Violence and arbitrariness have supporters – conscious ones and misguided ones. We cannot know whether those people we see going about their work over there – soldiers of the NVA ("National People's Army"), farmers, workers – are supporters, followers or victims of the system. Some do not want to, many are not allowed to make contact with us. Behind all of them are informers, fanatics and a draconian judiciary.

Over there, the soldiers have orderst to take the harshest possible action – including with firearms – against any violation of the control strip.

THEREFORE: Caution is advised!

Please note the signs:

ATTENTION ZONE BORDER

Do not approach the so-called demarcation line! Its course is often not clearly recognizable. It is not always identical to the edge line of the border stones. The border fence built by the SBZ (Sowjetische Besatzungszone, Soviet Occupation Zone), the 40 to 150 meter wide strip of fallow land with double fences and mines are already in the zone area. Remember: there is no "no man's land".

Use only public roads and paths! Anyone who circumvents or climbs over the markings of the demarcation line puts health and life at risk. The misery of our people is not a playground for the unsuspecting.

Refrain from any attempt to make contact (waving, shouting, talking, taking photographs, offering gifts). This is almost always interpreted as provocation. You must also refrain from any loud expression of displeasure towards those wearing the SBZ uniform. You do not only endanger yourself, but perhaps also the livelihood and the few relationships of those people who live here on both sides of the barbed wire.

The best way to find out about the local conditions is to contact the customs authorities, the Federal Border Guard or the state police. Register with these authorities in good time, they will be happy to help you.

Hessian State Center for Political Education

#germany #history #inner-german border

[nemesis0001]

Rereading KNY. I didn't realize how much I adore Gyomei Himejima. Happy birthday to him🎂🎉

I still find this funny everytime I see this panel and I don't know why

#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #gyomei himejima #kny #zenitsu agatsuma #tanjiro kamado #Giyu Shinobu Gyomei Rengoku and Muichiro are my favorite hashira #me and Gyomei are the same we both love cats #please i really wish that kamabako squad became hashira. i want to see their new design if only they become one😭 #I realized I never greeted Kanao and Tanjiro on their birthday because I was busy and stress at that time. #online class sucks #and so is our government and education system

[defences-down]

Braindump about current events in the tags because i can’t sleep and my brain keeps going and i don’t know what else to do other than write.

#my heart is shattered and I don’t know what to say or do and I feel so trapped #and unsettled and terrified #because I’m in a loop of watching to try to be informed and it’s traumatizing and if it’s that bad just watching it #living it must be hell and #my country is making the same mistakes over and over and kids are caught in the crossfire and I just don’t know what to do to help or #be of comfort to people and I’m doing what I can #educate myself more because i feel like i only know things about Israel-Palestine #and there’s stuff that i know that comes from other viewpoints but #most of my knowledge comes #through the lens of fundamental Christianity and I’ve been unpacking my worldview from that lens for years but i still have so many #things i don’t know because of the fact that our education system is so fucked and i went to a religious school so there’s even more fuckery #on top of that and I’m so fucking sad and scared for everyone but especially Palestinians like they’re mostly kids and they’re trapped #in a place where they can’t get out and i feel so sick and guilty for not doing enough. and my Muslim friends are scared and my Jewish #friends are scared and I don’t know how to help anyone and it’s only gonna get worse and i know it’s not about me but my heart is aching #and I don’t know how to look after myself and look after the people I love and i just keep sobbing #the actions of the Israeli government is sickening and the fact that the us government and others are backing them is disturbing but not #surprising. thank goodness the Irish government gets it because fucking someone has to see that it’s not ok

[babydarkstar]

also people yelling at americans to do something about our country as if i chose to be born here, as if everyone here actually gets a say in how things are run, as if our government doesn’t actively work to disenfranchise everyone who isn’t in a position of power. fuck off

#capitalist hell #bro we’re trying. #it’s sad how aeverything is connected in life. our education system sucks #so then we have ppl who graduated hs and cant read or critically think #people who are so wrapped up in a community entangled with racism that they dont see tht Big Govt is actually to blame #people who feed into propaganda. none of us are immune including me but the right wing is the worst #like it impassions so many emotions into people who already are impressionable #the internet has also become a plague. a cesspool. and television #it’s less the internet’s fault and more the ban of net neutrality #as well as our govt literally being designed to take FOREVER to get things done #and so ppl think that’s how it is everywhere #oh my god and the anti-socialist rhetoric embedded deep into every subject of school. the imperialism. it’s sick #anyways a lot of this stuff is not our fault. most of it isnt #the majority of american people dont understand the global impact of american imperialism bc it is so ingrained in us #to believe that our govt could do no wrong and only has the best intentions and that we’re The Good Guys saving people #it’s so buried under the advertising and constant commodification of bodies and soul that we dont even have it on the radar #and that’s not a good thing. it’s not an excuse. plenty of americans see thru that. but which way u go determines how u see it #if that makes any sense. anyways im ranting. im not saying everyones completely innocent like at all #but it’s so deeply carved into the culture that it’s impossible to avoid #but so then u get a group of people who Know that our government is corrupt #but they but dont want to acknowledge that the people they support are corrupt too so they want govt but dont. its contradictory

[wilwheaton]

The GOP wonders why young people (and others) don't want to vote for them. Some wise scribe assembled this list.

1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.

2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.

3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.

4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.

5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the NRA.

6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.

7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day

8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.

9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.

10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.

11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.

12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.

13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.

14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.

15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors.

16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age.

17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed.

18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS' legitimacy).

19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.

20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:—Universal background checks—An assault weapons ban—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act—The ERA & Equality Act—The Climate Action Now Act—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act—SCOTUS expansion.

21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.

22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/e8DBZLH

#republicans are garbage #uspol

[decolonize-the-left]

Project 25. The Heritage Foundation.

It's behind every single anti-lgbt law pushed the last year. They are why Roe v Wade was overturned. They are successful, well funded, and a massive threat.

What you can do is educate yourself and others about it. Get to know your enemy. Protest. Wear pride pins. Put out your flags. Show solidarity. We are ALL under attack by this white supremacist christo-fascist group.

Remember when 2020 had kpop stans organizing on twitter and gen z using tik tok to make Trump meets flop while white vets made themselves frontline walls at BLM protests that were organized to handle shit like kettling thanks to their amazing black organizers? Remember how people actually Showed up to those protests for awhile?

We need that cross-generational Fuck The System energy again. Not just for a summer this time. This needs to go passed the election.

They're playing a long game and so do we.

Get inspired.

Their goals include saving the children and traditional family, and "to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right."

This translates to destroying the EPA, disability rights, and criminalizing being LGBT. Also to overthrow the US government, as stated in their manifesto.

They want to replace our democracy with a theocracy. No Republican in office was elected without their approval.

They're the kind of right that makes being LGBT punishable by death. That makes it a crime just to exist where others can see you. They want librarians who work in libraries that make LGBT books accessible to be registered sex offenders. They want you prosecuted and even specify that no mercy should be shown to people the "left" likes (ex: immigrants, black people, etc)

That's the extreme right who's been manipulating our laws.

And they plan to make things a lot worse within the first 180 days a Republican is elected president.

Source

If you don't have plans coming up.... Start organizing them. We will be okay if we work together.

We will be okay if we work together.

If we have each other, we'll be okay. We have to rely on each other. You have to be reliable. You, person reading this, have to show up. That's how this works.

I have your back if you have mine. Do not leave me to the wolves and I won't leave you.

#current events #tumblr #news #important #supernatural

[jeepers-scoob]

I went through my 'i hate america phase' in like middle school and high school and while the reasons I felt this way still stand, I'm more of a 'i love my country and the communities that make it and that's why I'm so fucking angry and want the government to go up in flames' now. America has so many problems but what country doesn't? If you want to talk shit about us please keep addressing the fucked up bits but remember that we are not our government! We are a country made of diverse communities and cultures and have been fighting against our government for basically the entire time we've been a country! Shit is terrible and our government wants the majority of us dead or silenced so maybe instead of fixating on 'har har dumb fat Americans with their large beverage' try actually going after the people in power who are making our lives hell and are actively trying to brainwash people with fear mongering and misinformation and remember that a lot of what you decide to make fun of comes from oppressed communities coming together and doing their best with what they know and what they have.

#text #kayla rambles #us politics #sorry im just so tired of seeing the same shit about america all the time #so much of it ends up being fatphobic and/or racist #like i get it we are known for really fucked situations but show me a country without any similar issues #talk shit about how america-centric everything is or how bad our education and healthcare systems are #not how our bodies look and how we eat #and just bc its about america doesnt make it not xenophobic or racist #the bigoted facists in our government do not represent us and we are doing the best we can while #tons of us are constantly in survival mode

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

autism awareness & autism acceptance not either or. not mutually exclusive. can coexist. need coexist.

“there enough awareness for autism already 🙄 we need acceptance”

ok. you aware of high support needs autism? aware what that even means? not “need reminder take meds need remind take shower” “high” support needs autism, but “need full physical help do bADLs lack danger awareness may accidentally hurt self or even kill self without support” high support needs autism? not just higher support needs people who can be independently online do advocacy, but those who need help from others even be online, or those who cannot be online at. all.?

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people? not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can write grammatically correct cannot tell apart base on writing. not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can be online who can advocate online.

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who cannot communicate in way that easily understood, either for now, or ever? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people without functional communication, aware of how without functional communication, how that drastically limit communication, even though behaviors are valid communication? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who may never use AAC fluently even with best support?

aware of technically verbal but very limited verbal autistics who may only able say wants & needs but not other things and certainly not online advocacy, “despite being verbal”?

aware of just how much our life depends on caregiver/carer/PCA/etc? aware how vulnerable that make us? aware of abuse from caregivers? aware of caregiver burnout from lack of support for caregivers, & how that impact our care we receive? have you even heard of term respite care? aware of those of us who cannot separate ourselves from caregiver? aware of those of us who cannot participate in autism community without caregiver?

aware of visibly autistic people? aware how we not automatically believed? aware how we often bear blunt of violence because we most easily identified target because we visible? aware visible =/= get support, aware that many those diagnosed severe who now adult so no longer qualify for services under 21 year old, languish in hospitals because nowhere to go? aware how long life saving necessary waitlists are? aware that even to this day parents have to fight school fight day service fight government fight insurance for them give their nonverbal nonspeaking child AAC & be properly taught how use it? actually, are you aware of how properly teach AAC to nonverbal nonspeaking, developmentally delayed child who may or may not have intellectual disability?

actually, aware of autistics with (correctly diagnosed) intellectual disability & how they make up big amount of autistic? aware of institutional systemic & legal impact of mental [r word] right & the human rights abuse justified using r word right? wait, you aware that r word come from old term for intellectual disability, that, actually, still in many laws because no one bothered updating, right? aware of what severe profound ID look like? and aware they real and they still human deserve education deserve life deserve care, yes?

aware of early diagnosis 20 30 or even 10 years ago, not same as now, even less resources & knowledge about autism now? aware that while gender race class 1000% impacted diagnoses, a lot of early diagnosed people early diagnosed because… they die without support unlocked by diagnosis, right? but also, aware that in old times, early diagnosis often did mean doom, not because autism bad or anything, but because severe lack of support & diagnosis can literally bar you from so many things including basic education?

aware that for many people in special education, which impact specific group of autistic people, they not get degree when graduate high school, they just get certificate, which limit their educational & employment opportunities & others?

aware of life saving importance and necessity of masking for autistic of color especially Black autistic people, despite stress inducing traumatic? aware that live in broken system be victim of hate crime & police brutality just as traumatic often even more traumatic than masking? aware that many Black & other parents of color forced to teach their child masking because of this?

are you aware of most marginalized autistic people? aware of leadership of most impacted?

aware you can and need to care about autistic experiences & form of autism you not experience? aware that you can and need to do that without try twist your experience into our experience into our words our community?

aware that advocacy goes beyond about you?

aware that you can’t speak for all autistic? aware that you shouldn’t speak for all autistic?

are you aware of when you need to stop talking & listen & amplify others? aware of when and how to decenter self?

aware that even this long post, barely scratch surface? still so much to say?

[better worded version of original post]

#loaf screm #actually autistic #autism acceptence month #autism awareness #autism awareness month #high support needs #long post #nonverbal #nonspeaking #autism #autistic #autism acceptance

[gentil-minou]

can't we do smth for palestine like we did for ukraine like miraculers for palestine? i just think it'd help.

Monetary aid is useless in Gaza right now because Israel has the entire area under siege. We could raise a million dollars for them, and in fact many have, but it will rot in trucks trapped at the border because Israel refuses to let them in. They don't even have fuel or medical supplies or electricity or water or anything, not because there isn't anyone donating but because Israel refuses to let it in.

Their goal is to slowly starve and kill them all, or push them out of their homeland forever and steal more land for themselves

BUT YOU CAN HELP

WE NEED A CEASEFIRE

The majority of countries and citizens all throughout the world agree that we need an immediate and permanent ceasefire. (Not a humanitarian pause the US keeps trying to push like letting them have 5 days to breathe before Israel slaughters them all).

The majority agrees but a handful of countries, primarily the USA, Canada, and the UK have refused. And because the UN is a joke because the US gets whatever it wants even when it's the only one who wants it, a ceasefire is impossible.

So what can you do?

Easy

Contact your representatives and government

Flood their lines. Call them everyday. Fax them. Email them. Send them written letters. Join a protest. Disrupt the system

Make it clear you will not vote for them if they do not listen to you. Make it clear you want a ceasefire

Here are a few sites to get you started (these are US based but there are plenty of resources for other countries around)

This is just the link I have on hand there are COUNTLESS ones there are ones that will make the call for you, like this one that I used

Physical mail is better. Faxzero is a website that let's you send faxes for free. There are even pdfs and premade letters

Let's say you're not from one of these evil countries, what can you do?

There are protests around the world. Find them and join. Show the world Gaza is bleeding and Palestinians are screaming and that their screams are being heard. Show the world that you refuse to plug your ears and lie silent. Be their voice.

Educate yourself

Read books by Palestinians watch movies and documentaries. Follow their journalists, give them a voice especially now when the rich and powerful are trying so desperately to smother them.

Israel and the western powers want you to be ignorant.

DONT LET THEM

And whatever you do: don't stay silent. Don't treat this like a trend. Do not stop fighting

Even after a ceasefire, we need to keep going. There needs to be a complete dismantling of the Israel terrorist state. We have to keep fighting so Palestinians can live in Palestine the way they have for centuries. We need to show the corrupt governments in this world that we are not going to live under their tyranny

So be LOUD

#palestine #gaza #israel #free palestine #free gaza #Jerusalem #social justice #ceasefire now #gaza strip #palestinian #israeli apartheid #terrorism #jews of tumblr #jewsforpalestine #jumblr #asked and answered #miraculous ladybug

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

I just read the article you posted a while back about TB (heads up- it said the gift article link has lapsed or some such). Did J&J ‘evergreen’ (be allowed to be evil) or was it allowed to become generic?

Relatedly, how do you manage empathy fatigue? I deal with OCD too and it screams at me that I have to care about and do all the things all at once. How do you choose where to put your time and energy?

(Also, when I get the coffee subscription for my husband’s birthday, which version should I get?)

For me empathy fatigue sets in when I careen my attention from this crisis to that one to the next one to the one after that, always feeling overwhelmed by each emerging problem but never having the time or attention to devote myself to one problem or another.

I'll give you an example. In 2014, a horrific ebola epidemic swept through Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The world paid attention to it. Everyone was talking about it. And then .... it ended. At least in the global imagination. Money dried up. The world moved on to the next crisis.

That's not to say the next crisis wasn't important. It was important. But in Sierra Leone, the ebola crisis wasn't really over even after people stopped contracting ebola. 15% of Sierra Leone's healthcare workers had been killed by ebola, and the already fragile healthcare system plummeted into what one Sierra Leonean physician described to me as "a state of collapse."

And so the crisis remained a crisis even after the world's attention shifted. 1 in 17 women in Sierra Leone were dying in childbirth. Over 10% of kids born died before the age of five. Tuberculosis killed thousands every year despite curative treatment being available.

And this is when Hank and I finally, belatedly realized that responding to crises in the news was not adequate. Instead, we would need to commit the kind of long-term attention and long-term support that long-term crises demand. This means making difficult choices--there is also high maternal and child mortality in countries other than Sierra Leone, but we choose to focus on Sierra Leone because we see an opportunity to make a difference, because the government is serious if limited in its commitment to improving healthcare and educational opportunities, and because we had to make a choice or else we would be overwhelmed by the many causes.

What about the other causes? Well, we trust people to work on those causes. We believe in their importance. And we support their work by doing ours as well as we can, and trusting they are doing theirs as well as they can. I still get overwhelmed. I still get depressed. But I find that the deeper I go into my particular areas of interest--global healthcare delivery, health care accessibility, ending TB, fighting maternal mortality--the better I feel personally, and the more good I feel like I'm able to do.

2. Johnson & Johnson has not abandoned their secondary patents on bedaquiline but they have committed to allow generics to be available in most countries, even those where the secondary patents apply. Unfortunately this deal leaves out many countries that need generic bedaquiline, including Ukraine, which is absolutely unacceptable. So progress has been made, but the progress (as is so often the case) is inadequate. The fight goes on.

#tuberculosis #global health #partners in health #empathy fatigue

[qqueenofhades]

Man, the Russia/Ukraine war has led to a lot of terrible takes from far leftists. I have a mutual from Brazil, a self identified socialist, who is convinced that Ukraine is full of nazis. While they don't support Russia, they questioned why they have to be "pro-Ukraine" or "pro-Russia". They call Ukraine a "nazi hole" but call Russia merely "fascist". Am I wrong in thinking that they've been influenced by Russian propaganda? I know Ukraine does have a nazi/far right problem, but so does the US? And most European countries? idk they strongly hate the US/US government too, and it seems to create some kind of brainrot. at least they don't blindly support China or Russia like tankies do (nor identify with them), but it's still frustrating to take a neutral position on a pretty black and white situation.

I don't want to confront them 1) cause I'm not the type to argue over serious things like this and this may break our long friendship and 2) I'm not super educated on the nazi situation in Ukraine.

Anyway thank you for letting me rant in your inbox.

Yes, Russia has specifically focused its propaganda efforts on Latin America, Africa, and other regions that HAVE suffered from Western/European/American imperialism and are thus predisposed to take the worst view of them/believe that this situation is their fault somehow. This is similar to what the USSR did in newly postcolonial Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, positing themselves as offering the shared hand of communist brotherhood from Western oppressors. Because of more recent events like the invasion of Iraq, which was fully as unjustified as the invasion of Ukraine, Russian propagandists and their eager tankie/leftist foot soldiers have also got a lot of mileage out of "whataboutism." This is likewise an old Soviet propaganda technique designed to deflect any criticism of the actual situation by disingenuously asking "what about this other one!!!"

Likewise, the idea that Ukraine has a "Nazi problem" is itself propaganda. In the last election, far-right/Nazi-identified parties won barely 2% of the vote and AFAIK, no seats at all in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament). This is far lower than the nearly half of the USA voting for the far-right/Nazi-sympathetic Republican Party, and as noted, the far right elements in the UK and Europe. The idea that Ukraine is "full of Nazis" (with a Jewish president who just celebrated iftar with the Ukrainian Muslims/Crimean Tatars during Ramadan and instituted observance of Muslim holidays nationwide, very Nazi of him) is a line used by Russian propagandists to "justify" their attack and appeal to national memories of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) and the struggle against the Nazis, which is the central cultural grievance/memory in modern Russia. The Putin regime has referred to anyone they don't like, but especially the Ukrainians, as "Nazis" for a long time now, so it's supposedly their holy duty to kill them/commit ethnic cleansing/forcibly reunite the "fraternal" people of "Little Russia," as Ukraine has been called since the 17th century, with "Great Russia." And yeah, no.

Because the West and Europe has been pretty solidly on Ukraine's side, Russia has therefore cultivated countries like China, India, Brazil, etc, who have all suffered from Western interference and are looking to move into the first rank of global superpowers. This is, as noted, similar to the competing systems of influence built during the Cold War, but it also relies on much deeper Russian grievances that go back to the medieval era. Anybody who knows a thing about actual Russian history would therefore know that every single word it says about the Ukraine situation is a lie, but because that lie is useful for many other countries and fits into their own understanding of themselves, it is easy to repeat and act like it's a so-called superior moral position. This is also why US/American tankies so eagerly lap up Russian propaganda, because it plays into their moral sense of themselves as far better than the rest of the West and "righteously" discovering that the West is responsible for all the evil in the world etc etc. While non-Westerners are just helpless misunderstood puppets with no real agency or ability to make complex choices. This totally makes sense!!!

#anonymous #ask #russia ukraine war #russian history #as ever tankies are the fucking absolute worst and wrong about everything

[rana-tiddalik]

I have found myself stuck in a motel room, rereading the Murderbot books. I've been thinking about what we know about how Murderbot and Three acted after disabling their Governer Modules, the terrifying, paralysing freedom they suddenly experience, what they chose to do with it, and what that says about their trauma, and their experience as SecUnits.

Obviously, we primarily see what Murderbot does with this freedom. The whole series is about it answering the question of what it is that it wants, and wants to do now that it is a free agent. Its developing relationship and friendship with Mensah and the Preservation survey team. Its companionship with ART, and later ARTs crew. It finds a group who don't see it as just disposable (albeit expensive) equipment. They actually value it for itself, and are quite fond of it.

There is also the longest running joke in the series, that at any given time Murderbot would rather be watching its stories. But once we see what Three is up to in System Collapse, this got me thinking.

Three, we find out, spends its time poring over non-fiction and other educational material. I liked this as it reinforces that not all SecUnits are the same, and adds the bit of (horrifying) texture that all the Units have their own inner lives just like our favourite rogue unit.

I think looking at what they seek out when they are free also says something about what they missed while they were enslaved.

Three seeks education and technical information. Why would a construct want that? Well, think of one of my other favourite running jokes: Murderbot learns mostly everything through the media it consumes, because the Company never gave it any kind of education modules outside of things central to a SecUnits function as murder/surveillance machines, and those were low quality too. We know that most of the projects SecUnits are contracted to involve some kind of mining, terraforming or other technical engineering, science type activity. Imagine spending years standing around, watching humans do things that fascinate you, but there is something in your brain that will actively punish you if you try to access databases without authorisation. At worst, you might have your entire non neural tissue based memory completely wiped, or be scrapped for parts, if you try.

So when freed from the Governer Module, Three wants to learn.

When I thought of this, I thought about Murderbot's love of all kinds of visual media, and particularly in the context of the whole " Murderbot, ART-Drone and the gang make a documentary in a day" plot point in System Collapse.

In Exit Strategy, Mensah asks why it likes Sanctuary Moon. Murderbot's response is that it was the first piece of media it saw after hacking it's module. It let it watch humans, and kept it company without the need to interact, and the unspoken part was that it helped contextualise its own emotions. This makes a lot of sense. It doesn't have to act to save the stupid humans in the shows that it watches. It can see them save themselves.

I think there's also two further things here though. Firstly, we know that SecUnits usually have no idle time. They are not allowed to sit. Their only rest is when they are inoperative in their cubicles. They stand and they monitor. So when Murderbot gains control, it gains the ability to have leisure time. Standing around listening to two scientists argue about their xenosamples for hours at a time? Monitor the threat module in case it gets heated and one decides to break a conical flask over the others head, but otherwise, just fire up Sanctuary Moon.

The more fundamental one is a desire for art, for meaning. I love the bit where it describes how it had just hacked its module. It is able to pick up the entertainment feed for the first time, and there is this show. In its first glimpse of this trashy soap opera, it fundamentally gets art. How it is about communicating and exploring a thought, an emotion, an idea, and provoking a response in the viewer.

That's why the documentary plot in system collapse was unexpected and interesting to me. We see Murderbot really experiment for the first time with creating media and creating art. Maybe it has now discovered a freedom to create, and tell its own story.

In the end, seeing these things in Murderbot and Three make me think of all the other SecUnits. I imagine what the storage for them is like. The Company probably stores them in their cubicles. Stacked and ranked. They're kept dormant until they are activated and trotted out for the initial client meeting, like the one we see described where Mensah first meets Murderbot in the Company office. Maybe they dream as they rest. Maybe the Governer Module punishes them even for that.

Then I think of the as yet unnamed new B-E rogue unit, and what it wants to do with its freedom.

All we know is it wants to blend in for now. Maybe it has a plan, we don't know. But we do know it has a guide to hacking a Governer Module...

#murderbot #system collapse spoilers

[luminalunii97]

Some tankie bs detection

I saw this post on my dash. The user is blocked now. But just to educate people so that they won't fall for idiotic claims online, here are a couple of facts:

1. The Islamic Republic is not anti imperialist, they're anti USA. The regime is very much in love with Russian imperialism. At this point, Iran is an unofficial russian colony. And by the support of their imperialist father figure they have their small version of imperialism in middle east. Ask Iraq and Lebanon.

2. There's no "safety" when it comes to economy in Iran. The "national sovereignty" is called "those fvckin thieves in power" here. Iran's regime is one of the most corrupt regimes by international index. Rent, nepotism, embezzlement and money laundering are serious issues in Iran. Done only and only by the governors and people in power. Social class is not only a thing, there's a raging gap between rich people and those in poverty. And the gap is getting bigger and bigger by month. If you have connections in government or you are in the government, you'll get richer and richer. Other wise, soon enough you'll be in poverty too. Many families, including mine, who used to be considered middle class, have incomes lower than the poverty threshold now.

About 15% of Iran's economic failure including inflation is on the sanctions. The rest is on the corruption within the regime.

Iran's banking system is also a corrupted organ. The so called Islamic banking is anything but Islamic. The loan interest rate is one of the highest worldwide, 23%, so that often you have to pay back more than twice the money you've received. It's called Riba in Islam and it's Haram. According to the regime themselves, the banking system in European countries, even in the USA, is more Islamic than us. The fact that some of the biggest embezzlement in Iran has been done by bank managers should give you a picture of how they're drinking our blood.

None of this is on USA imperialism. It's all the Islamic Republic.

3. The Islamic Republic doesn't support Palestinians. The regime is extremely racist and anti Arab. I dare you talk about this with an actual Arab. IR don't give two shites about Palestinians lives. The regime is antisemitic. That's what they are. Palestine is just an excuse to attack Israel. In the past 20+ years of my life, living in Iran and dealing with these posers, not once we've been educated about Palestine and Palestinians lives. Everything I know, I've learned from online resources and documentaries make by Palestinians. The regime doesn't talk about Palestinians when they pose as supporters. I'm pretty sure they don't know or care to know anything noteworthy about Palestine, considering my knowledge of the human rights violations there is always more than basiji people of my country, and I don't even know that much. All the regime talks about is how Israel should be eliminated. IR supports a terrorist organization called Hamas, not Palestinians.

4. Let's forget about everything I said so far. I wonder if tankies like the op has any ounce of humanity in them! The regime has been oppressing women, violating every type of human rights and murdering lgbtq people and other-thinkers for the last 40 years. The spectacular environmental disaster in Iran is the direct result of regime's policies and neglect. This is a case of human rights violation since it's ruining people's lives, especially ethnic minorities, like Arab farmers in south.

No religious minority is safe in Iran, be it atheist, Baha'i, Jew, christian, or Sunni Muslim. They commit crime against children, through labor and through war. IRGC have little regards for human lives in general but it descent into no regards at all for ethnic minorities.

They have MASS EXECUTED 30,000 leftists (members of Marxist Communist parties and their supporters) within the first decade of their autocratic rule. It's unbelievably funny to me when foreign leftists support a regime that has executed many of their fellow thinkers and still arrest and torture any left activist in Iran.

To say the reason the 1979 revolution happened was to get rid of western influence and to establish a democratic free independent government is true. But the Islamic Republic is not that result. Don't be fooled.

#iran #iranian #iran revolution #iran protests #human rights #politics #lgbtq+ #feminism #middle east #irgcterrorists #support iranian women #human rights violation #crimes against children #crimes against women #ethnic minorities #racism #russian imperialism #tw misogyny #tw racism #tw homophobia #environmental issues #background information

[edenfenixblogs]

"Night" is Free if You're an Audible Subscriber

A lot of people's only experience with learning about the Holocaust is Anne Frank's Diary or works of fiction.

Anyone speaking about i/p right now NEEDS to read this first person account of life in a concentration camp.

There is a right way and a wrong way to read this book.

The right way: Sit with the uncomfortable feeling that non-Jewish people did this to Jews. Not just Germans and not just Nazis. The European leaders who aligned with Hitler and fought with him did this. The Russians who distributed and popularized the antisemitic conspiracy theories which informed much of Europe's Jew hatred at the time did this. The neighbors who sat back and watched as government officials carted off people they knew and saw every day or shot them in the streets and buried them in mass graves. The ones who convinced themselves they were good people simply because they didn't pull the trigger or operate a gas chamber. The citizens of nations of the Allied powers who turned away Jewish refugees from Europe. The Nazi sympathizers in the US. The vast ,expansive hatred against Jews that prevented anyone from intervening on our behalf.

Sit with the fact that nobody intervened to protect Jews, ever. The Allied powers intervened to stop German expansionism, not to protect Jews. They did not fight in WWII to protect Jews. That any Jews survived at all is a miracle. The fact that the camps were liberated at all is a miracle. Because it wasn't a goal. It wasn't something that people were fighting to achieve. That's what people don't seem to understand.

Killing Jews WASN'T the thing that the Allied powers had a problem with.

Plenty of Americans and Europeans from Allied nations thought it sure was a shame that Hitler was so aggressively expansionist, because he had some great ideas about how to kill all those Jews.

And unless you're Jewish, there is the extremely uncomfortable but likely chance that someone you loved was pretty OK with killing my family.

Or, at the very least, that someone killing my family was not something they had the emotional capacity or willingness to engage with. Think about what that does to my trust for YOU. And if you don't think that someone you loved passed on that apathy and antisemitism to you, then you're naive.

The only correct way for a non-Jew to read this book is to sit with who they are as people and think about how they treat Jews and try to empathize with how this indescribable tragedy affected and continues to affect Jews worldwide.

If you have never read this book, I want you to think long and hard about how absolutely terrifying it is for Jewish people that, I, a Jewish woman, have to BEG non-Jews to read it. Because your education system failed you. And because Jews are afraid that YOUR BEHAVIOR WILL DO THIS TO US AGAIN.

The wrong way: Making this true memoir about living through an industrialized genocide about ANYTHING other than antisemitism and antisemitic apathy. You don't get to use it to draw parallels to other atrocities or wars or people. At least not during/while processing your first reading of this book. Why? Because until you sit with your own internalized antisemitism, where and who it came from, and are willing to confront your own hate toward us, then you are missing the point. The point is that people can convince themselves they are good and that they care about their fellow humans and they can have empathy for everyone except Jews. Sure, they might think it's sad that bad things keep happening to Jews. But it never really seems to be the priority, does it? It never seems to be a pressing enough issue to be worth addressing. There's always something more important happening.

That's antisemitic thinking too. You do, actually, need to prioritize dismantling your antisemitism in order to, you know, dismantle it. Just because you don't sit around daydreaming about Hitler doesn't mean you're not antisemitism. Ignoring us is part of your antisemitism--one of the most damaging and intrinsic parts of antisemitism actually. The Holocaust did not happen because most people hated Jew enough to kill us. The Holocaust happened because a bunch of people didn't care enough Jews to stop the people who DID want to harm us.

If you can't think of the last time you tried to unlearn something antisemitic within yourself, then people like you are why the Holocaust happened. If you have had to tune out Jewish pain because it feels like a "distraction," then people like you are why the Holocaust happened. If your reaction to reading this is to feel some kind of righteous anger that I've called you a bad person because you have proof you care about other people, then you are the kind of person who allowed the Holocaust to happen. And you're also wrong.

Because I'm not calling you a bad person. I'm calling you a flawed person who has the ability to fix a flaw that has the potential to harm others. I'm not asking you to care about other, non-Jewish, people. And I'm not asking you to STOP caring about the non-Jewish people you care about.

What I am saying is that claiming that you care about Jewish people is not the same as actually caring about us.

I'm asking you to sit and read this book and to remember that it is about JEWISH PAIN and a JEWISH TRAGEDY that happened to JEWISH PEOPLE. You need to actually devote time to caring about Jewish people, because society never taught you how to do that, and it has no infrastructure built to help you do that. Because antisemitism is baked into the infrastructure itself. Take the time. Read the book. Let Jewish pain be about Jewish people. Let us own our own tragedy. Do not take it from us to apply to other situations. ESPECIALLY not when the actual original situation was something that nobody cared about enough to prevent.

Understand this: If you're not Jewish, there is no way I can explain to you how painful it is to watch people be so invested in likening every terrible thing that happens to any other group of people to the Holocaust, when those same people never actually first tried caring about the Holocaust and the people it actually happened to.

#an eden original #elie wiesel #antisemitism #holocaust inversion #leftist antisemitism #shoah tw #holocaust tw #night

[tikkunolamresistance]

This will end right? One day. All the injustices will end right? I am so tired. I feel so tired and I am privileged as fuck. That I can say I feel tired is a privilege. People out there aren't even having that. I want it all to end. Why can't we truly live together. Not the false promise of peace. But truly together. It has been so many years. 2000 years since we learnt to count days as A.D. Why are we still like this. I want it all to end.

We know how you feel. We know this feeling. Only in unity, knowledge, betterment, re-education, compassion and hope can we see an end to the Capitalist system. Only in that will we see complete liberation. Something that we hold onto, is that, when you lie to somebody; it will always be revealed. The western governments lies and propaganda will never truly hold. There will always be a revelation and for as long as we know how to handle, dissect and enforce change from these revelations we can build a future in honesty and respect. We must be willing to learn, to let go of lies we have once lived, to be okay with being uncomfortable. We must truly want to and recognise the need to do better.

A better future is a collective effort, and we have the power to outnumber our oppressors— we must inspire willing. We must inspire, we must never give in, we must carry forward what our ancestors, our revolutionary forefathers, our comrades have built. We is a must.

#org responses #anti capitalism #free palestine

[decolonize-the-left]

Is anyone else just completely disillusioned? Done?

I could not think any less of people still talking about celebrities or how their biggest issues are not having a Starbucks cup that's $50

Like why are we as a collective letting people like that run the lives of everyone on the planet? A planet rife with unnecessary conflict and greed? People who can't be bothered to just Not go to chick-fil-a?

Why are people who clearly value profit over humanity in charge of humanity, ykwim? How the fuck did that become a majority opinion?

I drive thru my nuclear town, I go to our community events, our local small businesses, I try to support my community in ways I can everyday. But I can't help but notice that So Many of the people who do that alongside me, don't show up to protest for the rights of the people they claim to support.

Its all so incredibly shallow and one dimensional and obviously disingenuous and why the fuck are the rest of STILL begging for the ability to make changes within the framework they built?

Why are we still making educational posts for them and trying to make them understand when the first thing we are taught about reaching understand is that you must first be willing to listen and they refuse.

The ruling classes never listened. Never, ever have they granted anyone any oppressed group rights that they asked for without the group needing to fight for it. And it's always after generations of oppression.

I'm fucking tired of being nice and pretending the laws they made up matter and like their socially constructed bureaucracy is the only way to make change to be quite fucking honest.

They're LUCKY we use it EVER and now they don't even fucking listen to our voicemails?

The only things stopping me from taking what's mine are disabilities and I'm Dying to know what everyone else's excuses are.

Or is that?

Are we all physically too incapable? Is every single able bodied person actually a liberal fascist?

Asking for the disabled Turtle Mountain Ojibwe person typing this who's life literally depends on y'all caring enough about other people to make life anything but a list of systematic circumstances I'll suffer from until I eventually die early of an illness I can't afford medical aids for and which are not provided for me either.

And if you're able bodied and you feel the same... Start working outside that framework and stop asking so nicely. Stop giving a shit if you don't have the support of the oppressors and their liberal foot soldiers.

Stop worrying about what CNN is gonna say about you because I promise that the people who matter and Understand you will be inspired to follow in your foot steps and supportive.

Get active in your co-ops, mutual aid groups, and consider training like you're black bloc.

Learn what direct action is and how to do it and start doing it. Just reading theory era is over.

More of this

less whatever the level of cognitive dissonance this is

Imagine saying 'i voted so I did everything I could' like the suffragettes didn't have an arson and bombing campaign because the people who Could vote were people benefitted from their systemic silence and thus did almost Nothing to help them get voting rights and they Refused to let oppressor laziness be their obstacle.

Yeah, they don't teach you that in Voting Matters School the suffragettes were bombing the UK just a year or two before they got their rights do they?

The only language oppressors will listen to is their own.

And I'm Tired of pretending otherwise because that delusion is what makes the privileged feel like they don't have to do anything but vote and makes them feel they're justified to criticize those of us that fight back through other avenues.

And maybe if we had politicians that gave a shit about any of us then those votes and movements and public sentiment would have a bigger sway in government, but they don't.

They don't fucking care.

Why are we still giving them power over any of us and letting them tell us what to do and demonize us when they use that power allowed to kill us and bury us in unmarked graves in some field in Mississippi? And make everything so expensive that the richest citizens on earth struggle to pay their bills?

Why can a government only "condemn" a state agent's right to shoot an unarmed protester 57 times, but they can bypass Congress to send Israel billions upon billions worth of weapons?

I'm tired of pretending this country is anything but a front for White Supremacists when every liberal I see is trying to gaslight everyone into thinking genocide is acceptable.

Shut the fuck up and get out of my equality tags, fascist.

#Whiteness #white Supremacy #decolonize #decolonization #colonialism #imperialism #direct action #leftists #fascists #fascism #settlers #colonizer #indigenous #ojibwe #native #ndn #solidarity #mutual aid #lgbt #capitalism #leftist #usa #liberals #progressives #voting #biden #joe Biden #Palestine #gaza #Americans