Notices by wet forest moon folklorist (seachanger@alaskan.social)

the right is obsessed with telling people about what "the left" is taking from them, and in doing so defines freedom as mindless consumption & the ability to hurt others without consequence

when centrists cosplay the right, they spread the same frames of individualism and commercialism

we have to turn sharply away from the centrists, and get really good at describing the amazing things the left wants for everyone, and defining freedom in terms of luxurious public goods

ridge report from Petersburg, AK 🫡

just want to be alone with David Graeber’s ideas for like a week https://graeber.social/@DGI/113595022679672099

@ayoub

"the oslo paradigm failed on Oct 7" is some tight propaganda coming from a coalition who assassinated Israel's Oslo signatory, in order to kill the Oslo accords

Gaza is the first genocide many of us are watching in real time (while also being mostly powerless to stop our countries paying for it). I think it’s normal to be more & more frustrated, sad, or angry as this keeps getting, somehow, worse.

remember how horrified we were just a few weeks into it

the thing you don’t want is to get numb to the attempted extermination of a people

(Photo I took one time traveling in Mexico)

"In These Times interviewed 18 Jewish professionals with 16 different Jewish organizations across the country, all of whom describe being fired, quitting under pressure, or seeing their roles disappear since October 7 for issues surrounding criticism of Israel or support for a permanent cease-fire. These stories are just a snapshot of what appears to be a growing trend across the Jewish professional world..."

https://inthesetimes.com/article/anti-zionist-israel-gaza-jewish-institutions

Beirut is a beautiful, historic city, full of galleries, beaches, farmers markets, etc

Today, Israel dropped 5000 lbs US "bunker buster" bombs on residential areas in Beirut, completely destroying 6 apartment towers. This while also bombing tents and schools today in Gaza

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/9/27/israel-attacks-lebanon-israeli-bombings-kill-more-than-700-in-lebanon

pay attention to people who want to foreclose debate on the moral implications of consequential technologies.

the first of our rights to be lost is always our right to defend our own logic

the precautionary principle is an extraordinary technology itself: it says that until we can prove an invention will not be more harmful than helpful, we should hold back on sending that invention to market

I’d argue the one technology humans most desperately need to invent is the ability for collective restraint on behalf of the common good

“AI is just a tool, it is silly to debate the morality of a tool” 🤔

“Assault rifles are just a tool, it is silly to debate the morality of a tool”

“The atom bomb was just a tool, it is silly to debate the morality of a tool”

🙋🏼♀️

I see 2 key places to improve Mastodon re: safety + one process suggestion

1) ability to turn off replies from accts user does not follow

2) mods can easily select from user-curated blocklists in server settings, with a default blocklist maintained by Mastodon itself already “checked”

3) paid safety advisor(s) who help users and mods make these kind of recommendations without having to go through complex/tech processes

@Gargron https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/113080979375593074

"The stage played host to speakers from every other walk of life—including multiple Republicans and a top executive at Uber—but a Palestinian speaking about the situation in #gaza even with a party-vetted speech, was just too much for the DNC. The Uncommitted movement had proposed Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman and you can read what she would have said here." via ryan grim

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/08/dnc-speech-uncommitted-movement-harris-walz-ruwan-romman/

If you donated to #mastodonforharris, would you consider donating to some of our own community members who could use mutual aid from our community?

@thiswomanswerk already put some work in to organize a thread of accts for Juneteenth, that’s one place to start https://blacktwitter.io/@thiswomanswerk/112539849684901598

Jeffries, Pelosi, and Schumer all telling Biden to quit. Too much at risk with Biden also dragging downballot races. Folks, it’s happening https://mastodon.social/@axios/112807989600498996

a fun thing is that Mexicans just elected a nobel prize-winning climate scientist and leftist feminist woman as their president by wide margins

@ainmosni isn’t it just that right wing fedi is blocked from left wing fedi?

“We were confronted by counter-protesters who engaged in blind reactionarism that had little to do with the genocide we were protesting as well as our demands. We condemn the hateful actions and rhetoric of the counter protesters, who threw food and made violent threats”

University of Mississippi: ‘abhorrent’ counter-protesters condemned
Largely white, male group taunts pro-Palestinian protesters on campus and one man makes racist gesture towards Black woman

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/04/university-of-mississippi-counter-protesters

The third US State Dept official and the first foreign service officer to resign over #Gaza tells NPR tonight: "it's a very strange time in the State Dept, something like I have never experienced in my 18 years of service.

"Our unconditional military aid made it impossible for us to have any credibility even for the good things we were doing."

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/29/1247936363/state-department-diplomat-resigns-in-protest-of-u-s-policy-in-gaza

@raph offers clear, first hand insight on the Israeli gap between working for justice vs calling for peace & he hits on some real universal patterns, worth a read

Why don't progressive Zionists center justice?
https://www.onesmalldetail.blog/why-dont-progressive-zionists-center-justice/

my biggest complaint about AI is we didn’t ask for it. zero popular movements took to the streets to demand AI. no one sat around kitchen tables lamenting how hard life is without AI.

what people want is health care, housing, climate change solutions, etc We sit around kitchen tables wondering how to pay for college, get loved ones the psych and addiction support they need, or help the people on our streets who need homes