𧿠good vibez only please, or may the might of the heavens strike you down
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When proclamations are made that âvoting is harm reduction,â itâs never clear how less harm is actually calculated. Do we compare how many millions of undocumented Indigenous Peoples have been deported? Do we add up what political party conducted more drone strikes? Or who had the highest military budget? Do we factor in pipelines, mines, dams, sacred sites desecration? Do we balance incarceration rates? Do we compare sexual violence statistics? Is it in the massive budgets of politicians who spend hundreds of millions of dollars competing for votes? Though there are some political distinctions between the two prominent parties in the so-called U.S., they all pledge their allegiance to the same flag. Red or blue, theyâre both still stripes on a rag waving over stolen lands that comprise a country built by stolen lives.
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The anarchist collective Crimethinc observes, âVoting consolidates the power of a whole society in the hands of a few politicians.â When this process is conducted under colonial authority, there is no option but political death for Indigenous Peoples. In other words, voting can never be a survival strategy under colonial rule. Itâs a strategy of defeat and victimhood that protracts the suffering and historical harm induced by ongoing settler colonialism. And while the harm reduction sentiment may be sincere, even hard won marginal reforms gained through popular support can be just as easily reversed by the stroke of a politicianâs pen.
If voting is the democratic participation in our own oppression, voting as harm reduction is a politics that keeps us at the mercy of our oppressors.
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Prior to settler colonial invasion, Indigenous Peoples maintained diverse complex cultural organizations that were fairly unrecognizable to European invaders. From its inception, the U.S. recognized that Indigenous Peoples comprised distinct sovereign Nations. The projection of Nation status was committed on the terms of the colonizers who needed political entities to treaty with (primarily for war and economic purposes). As a result, social organizations of Indigenous Peoples faced extreme political manipulation as matriarchal and two-spirit roles were either completely disregarded or outright attacked. The imperative of the U.S. settler colonial project has always been to undermine and destroy Indigenous sovereignty, this is the insidious unnature of colonialism.
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Katherine Osborn, an ethnohistorian at Arizona State University states, â[Indigenous] polities hold a government-to-government relationship with the United States. Thus, their political status is unique, and that means that they are not just another minority group hoping for inclusion in the U.S. political order. For indigenous communities, protecting their sovereignty as tribal nations is the paramount political concern.â When the U.S. constitution was initially created, each state could determine who could be citizens at their discretion. Some states rarely granted citizenship and thereby conferred the status to select Indigenous Peoples but only if they dissolved their tribal relationships and became âcivilized.â This typically meant that they renounced their tribal affiliation, paid taxes, and fully assimilated into white society. Alexandra Witkin writes in To Silence a Drum: The Imposition of United States Citizenship on Native Peoples, âEarly citizenship policy rested upon the assumption that allegiance could only be given to one nation; thus peoples with an allegiance to a Native nation could not become citizens of the United States.â The preference though was not to respect and uphold Indigenous sovereignty, but to condemn it as âuncivilizedâ and undermine it through extreme tactics of forced assimilation.
Since the idea of U.S. âdemocracyâ is majority rule, barring an extreme population surge, Indigenous voters will always be at the mercy âof good intentionedâ political allies. Consolidating the Native vote into a voting bloc that aligns with whatever settler party, politician, or law that appears to do less harm isnât a strategy to exercise political power, itâs Stockholm syndrome. The Native vote also seeks to produce Native politicians. And what better way to assimilate rule then with a familiar face? The strategy of voting Indigenous Peoples into a colonial power structure is not an act of decolonization, itâs a fulfillment of it. We have a history of our people being used against us by colonial forces, particularly with assimilated Indigenous Peoples acting as âIndian Scoutsâ to aid the enemyâs military. In only one recorded instance, Ndee (Cibicue Apache) Army Scouts mutinied against the U.S. when they were asked to fight their own people. Three of the Ndee scouts were executed as a result
No matter what you are led to believe by any politician seeking office, at the end of the day they are sworn to uphold an oath to the very system that was designed to destroy us and our ways of life. The oath for members of Congress states, âI do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.â
Even if we assume that their cultural values and intentions are in line with those of the people, it is rare that politicians are not tied to a string of funders. As soon as they get elected they are also faced with unrelenting special interest lobbying groups that have millions and millions of dollars behind them and, even if they have stated the best intentions, are inevitably outnumbered by their political peers.
Voting in the colonizerâs elections keeps Indigenous Peoples powerless. Our power, broadly speaking, does not come from non-consensual majority rule top-down man-made laws but is derived in relation with and proportion to all living beings. This is a corporeal and spiritual power that has been in effect since time immemorial and is what has kept Indigenous Peoples alive in the face of more than 500 years of extreme colonial violence.
The late Ben Carnes, a powerful Choctaw advocate, is quoted in an article about the Native vote by Mark Maxey stating, âMy position is that I am not a citizen of a government who perpetuates that lie that we are. Slavery was legal just as well as Jim Crow, but just because it is law doesnât make it right. We didnât ask for it, the citizenship act was imposed upon us as another step in their social and mental conditioning of Native people to confiscate them of their identity. It was also a legislative method of circumventing the âIndians not taxedâ clause of the Constitution, thereby justifying imposing taxes. The U.S. electoral system is a very diseased method where candidates can be purchased by the highest corporate (contributor) bidder. The mentality of voting for the lesser of two evils is a false standard to justify the existence of only a two-party system. Checks and balances are lacking to ensure that public servants abide by the will of the people. The entire thing needs to be scrapped as well as the government itself.â
Voting will never be âharm reductionâ while colonial occupation & U.S. imperialism reigns. In order to heal we have to stop the harm from occurring, not lessen it. This doesnât mean simply abstinence or ignoring the problem until it just goes away, it means developing and implementing strategies and maneuvers that empower Indigenous Peopleâs autonomy. Since we cannot expect those selected to rule in this system to make decisions that benefit our lands and peoples, we have to do it ourselves. Direct action, or the unmediated expression of individual or collective desire, has always been the most effective means by which we change the conditions of our communities. What do we get out of voting that we cannot directly provide for ourselves and our people? What ways can we organize and make decisions that are in harmony with our diverse lifeways? What ways can the immense amount of material resources and energy focused on persuading people to vote be redirected into services and support that we actually need? What ways can we direct our energy, individually and collectively, into efforts that have immediate impact in our lives and the lives of those around us? This is not only a moral but a practical position and so we embrace our contradictions. Weâre not rallying for a perfect prescription for âdecolonizationâ or a multitude of Indigenous Nationalisms, but for a great undoing of the settler colonial project that comprises the United States of America so that we may restore healthy and just relations with Mother Earth and all her beings.
Our tendency is towards autonomous anti-colonial struggles that intervene and attack the critical infrastructure that the U.S. and its institutions rest on. Interestingly enough, these are the areas of our homelands under greatest threat by resource colonialism. This is where the system is most prone to rupture, itâs the fragility of colonial power. Our enemies are only as powerful as the infrastructure that sustains them. The brutal result of forced assimilation is that we know our enemies better than they know themselves. What strategies and actions can we devise to make it impossible for this system to govern on stolen land? We arenât advocating for a state-based solution, redwashed European politic, or some other colonial fantasy of âutopia.â In our rejection of the abstraction of settler colonialism. we donât aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it. We seek nothing but total liberation.
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People from ohio / utah / etc middle of continent, realize how in the US u never rly hear so much about like Tajikistan? Yeah you are North Americaâs Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, etc.
Stop complaining about WWIII from Ohio
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yes this applies to Adderall. Adderall is a drug and you can get addicted to it like any other substance. addiction is not the same as physical dependence; it is psychological and it can happen to anyone. you are not immune to addiction.
nobody warns you this but addiction happens without you noticing and one of the first things that it attacks is your ability to care. if you find yourself using recreational drugs every day, stop and take one day a week sober. if you struggle with this or if you don't see the point of the exercise, you are likely already addicted and you need help.
#Please people who actually do smoke weed for medication and are prone to ocd like thoughts#medicine that helps facilitate your functioning is not the same are abusing a debilitating drug#dont go âoh weed is a drug i need to quitâ bcâŚ? This post said so? No babyâŚthis is about substance abuse#its not about medication#all the same if your medicine causes problems with functioning thats another issue to be solved with considerate planning usually with your#Doctor but in todayâs world many lack that privilege.#so you have to keep your head on your shoulders and not freak out and jump to feeling#oh let me stop taking my meds because some people called it a drug#Like no people dont shouldnt that. U dont tell to cut off their focus meds just because some think its a ~drug~. its if its being abused.#But at the same time taking medicine is different than abusing drugs like the post goes into detail explaining#I just know some people will ignore the rest of the post and then have weird feelings about smoking weed#if it helps it helps and if itâs not helping we need to change things#everything is like that#you can become dependent and addicted to medicines too lest we forget the sad sad PRESCRIBED opioid epidemic :/#OP was mad annoying saying everything about weed at the bottom bc yes weed can be addictive but literally so can masturbation video games#Adhd medication opioid medication internet doomscrolling and anything else holy shit#Yay op deleted i got a little bit asshole vibes from them#in the absense of abusive misbehavior#you cant be ~addicted~ to your medicine any more than a diabetic is addicted to insuline baybee.#Saying your withdrawals from your medication = youâre a morally bad person ADDICT! is just so untruthful#Besides that addicts are not morally bad or bad at all#Theyre just people who need helpâŚlike come on#Can we do without the shaming language??? God you people are dogs i cant stand how you shame others#i switched it to prescribed adderall to show just how stupid OP is to frame it like that haha#if someone cuts their meds cold turkey theyre gonna have withdrawals#You must make the distinction between useful medicine and abused drugs
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do you even hear yourself âdiyâ bootstrapper
Hey guys. You still should not use ChatGPT even if it only generated correct and high quality answers. The reason you shouldn't use it isn't 'it sucks at what it does' even if that is often true, it misses the point. The reason is that it's trained on stolen writing (which has always been public knowledge) and wastes unimaginable amounts of energy (also very public knowledge at this point).
The idea that you shouldn't use it solely because it gives bullshit answers only leads to people finding things it is actually good at and thinking that means it's totally okay to use it for that. I don't care about how much you don't want to write a cv yourself and how good chatGPT is at writing them. I'm sure there are things it doesn't suck at! I can totally believe you when you say it's capable of generating a decent cv in a fraction of the time it'd have taken you to write one that's half as good and took much more effort. That's not a good enough reason to use it
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âWe need to stop looking for ways to voluntarily make ourselves less present in our own lives and minds.â This is conservative and reactionary rhetoric btw. Used for the internet. For the printing press. pls. be careful the language you use
Hey guys. You still should not use ChatGPT even if it only generated correct and high quality answers. The reason you shouldn't use it isn't 'it sucks at what it does' even if that is often true, it misses the point. The reason is that it's trained on stolen writing (which has always been public knowledge) and wastes unimaginable amounts of energy (also very public knowledge at this point).
The idea that you shouldn't use it solely because it gives bullshit answers only leads to people finding things it is actually good at and thinking that means it's totally okay to use it for that. I don't care about how much you don't want to write a cv yourself and how good chatGPT is at writing them. I'm sure there are things it doesn't suck at! I can totally believe you when you say it's capable of generating a decent cv in a fraction of the time it'd have taken you to write one that's half as good and took much more effort. That's not a good enough reason to use it
#regardless how well intentioned#actually calling this âtone policingâ is so unbelievably unhinged#Like way to cover your eyes and ears#You are serving ableism severely
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dumbass sculpted a gross 2 leg-fin mermaid freak
at Nesvizh Castle, âa residential castle of the RadziwiĹĹ family in NiasviĹž, Belarus. It is 183 metres above sea level. 1919-1945 the complex was in Poland and was considered one of the most beautiful castles in the Kresy region.â ~ Wikipedia
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can someone please explain what the hell these last 2 comments mean
The Democratic Party is far from perfect but the current Republican Party has been taken over by white Christian nationalists.
Please show up to vote on November 5 and vote Harris/Walz and vote blue up and down the ballot. Itâs the only way we can keep our secular democracy and work to change things for the better.
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OP do you realize this is disgusting
The Democratic Party is far from perfect but the current Republican Party has been taken over by white Christian nationalists.
Please show up to vote on November 5 and vote Harris/Walz and vote blue up and down the ballot. Itâs the only way we can keep our secular democracy and work to change things for the better.
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why did prozach27 block me. is it because i was anti-racist. oh well.
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Itâs wild the number of posts I come across where people act like voting for or supporting Harris and Walz in the election is tantamount to implicitly supporting genocide. You know what actually helps genocide? Doing nothing while pretending you have the moral high ground. America is deeply tied to Israel and there will be no candidate who is as critical of their actions as we want them to be. We as private citizens do not have the power to make the USA suddenly cease all activity with Israel and demand an uncompromising ceasefire deal. Instead, we have to get our hands dirty and decide what path forward will mitigate as much harm as possible. You have one presidential candidate saying Israel needs to finish the job and another saying that we canât ignore the tragedies in Gaza while vocally supporting a temporary ceasefire. These are your two picks. Thinking any third party candidate has a shot when none have any wide-reaching name recognition less than 100 days before the election is a fever dream.
The question then becomes, are you willing to say you voted âcorrectlyâ by voting for someone who has no shot of winning but is most closely aligned to you? Or are you going to vote for who will do the least harm? The idea that voting for a president involves liking them is a fairy tale. The establishment will always be the enemy of civil rights and safety. Youâre voting for which opponent you want in office. The writing is on the wall about which candidate will be less of an uphill battle to fight against, and sidestepping the responsibility of making that decision by throwing away a vote isnât moral or intellectually groundbreaking - itâs cowardly.
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Is this the worst timeline? Are you a wolfaboo? An unbased turbovirgin twidiot westoid, perhaps? Maybe even an SJW triggered tumblrina vro fluent in Yapanese? Are you a dank topkek tradlarp theorycel? Perchance you slid into the dms of the soyjak aislop orange man bad refucklican? Did they hit the pentagon? Did the thicc thirsttrap they/them spoopy schizoposter romaboo ghost you on read? Was the rentoid roseboy your Roman Empire, sister in christ? You thought you were the react Andy to the unspoken skibidi rizz greypilled Mr. Beast clone? Was the Groyper Truecel Troll going your 13th reason why? You had enough ropefuel from your zoosexual PDF File unaliver f3t1sh1st vro getting called out and doxxed by the Sharty?
new copypasta just dropped
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