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djuvlipen · 2 months ago

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i went to a leftist festival last month and there was a panel dedicated to prostitution, why abolition is the only road to go for leftists and how to help and support prostituted women exiting the trade, and i keep thinking about that union organizer who said, "we hear more and more that 'sex work is work', but if that were true, then there'd be professional trainings leading to a qualification for prostitution, then there'd be prostitution diplomas, then high schoolers could send applications to follow those trainings and become prostitutes. but we all know that all these things don't exist, and if they did exist we would all recognize them for what they are: a grooming business encouraging pedophilia and violence against women and girls." and what she said later; "trade unions that argue that 'sex work is work' never engage in legal battles against pimps or brothel owners. they don't even recognize that pimps are the bosses of the prostitution market. "sex workers' trade unions" don't fight pimps because sex workers' unions don't represent the alleged "workers" (prostituted women), they represent the bosses: pimps."

and that made me think of what Kajsa Ekis Ekman said about the trade unions that consider prostitution to be work and prostituted women to be workers: they offer trainings about condom use and spend millions of dollars funding "worker peer education" about "safe sex".

So one again, it's prostituted women who are held responsible for the spreading and the prevention of STDs - not the johns, not the pimps. the prostituted women, many of them victims of sex trafficking. "As human trafficking expert Malka Marcovich has pointed out, this means a return to nineteenth-century ideals of hygiene, where the onus was “primarily on the women to take responsibility for the health of ‘the customer’, so diseases would not be spread to their families” (2007, p. 347)."

It's quite obvious to any trade union organizer that prostitution is not work and the sex trade can't be organized as a trade union. a few months ago, the biggest unions in my country (which included the traditional left-wing trade unions as well as students' unions) issued a paper condemning the 'sex work is work' narrative and the pimp lobbies got so mad about that because they know their strategy isn't working because leftists know what left-wing politics look like and they know women's liberation doesn't come from prostitution. Now it's interesting that the biggest voices of the "sex work is work" movement come from the USA, where the anticapitalist left doesn't exist. American liberals love to pass reactionary politics as revolutionary but not because they are stupid in their own country does it mean they should influence the actually left-wing labour movement in other countries, right?

#anti prostitution #kajsa ekis ekman #labour rights #trade unions #marxfem #marxist feminism

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najia-cooks · 1 year ago

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[ID: A decorative orange ceramic plate with a pyramid of green herbs and sesame seeds, topped with deep red sumac and more sesame seeds. End ID]

زعتر فلسطيني / Za'tar falastinia (Palestinian spice blend)

Za'tar (زَعْتَر; also transliterated "za'atar," "zaatar" and "zatar") is the name of a family of culinary herbs; it is also the name of a group of spice blends made by mixing these herbs with varying amounts of olive oil, sumac, salt, roasted sesame seeds, and other spices. Palestinian versions of za'tar often include caraway, aniseed, and roasted wheat alongside generous portions of sumac and sesame seeds. The resulting blend is bold, zesty, and aromatic, with a hint of floral sourness from the sumac, and notes of licorice and anise.

Za'tar is considered by Palestinians to have particular national, political, and personal importance, and exists as a symbol of both Israeli oppression and Palestinian home-making and resistance. Its major components, olive oil and wild thyme, are targeted by the settler state in large part due to their importance to ecology, identity, and trade in Palestine—settlers burn and raze Palestinian farmers' olive trees by the thousands each year. A 1977 Israeli law forbade the harvesting of wild herbs within its claimed borders, with violators of the law risking fines and confiscation, injury, and even death from shootings or land mines; in 2006, za'tar was further restricted, such that even its possession in the West Bank was met with confiscation and fines.

Despite the blanket ban on harvesting wild herbs (none of which are endangered), Arabs are the only ones to be charged and fined for the crime. Samir Naamnih calls the ban an attempt to "starve us out," given that foraging is a major source of food for many Palestinians, and that picking and selling herbs is often the sole form of income for impoverished families. Meanwhile, Israeli farmers have domesticated and farmed za'tar on expropriated Palestinian land, selling it (both the herb and the spice mixture) back to Palestinians, and later marketing it abroad as an "Israeli" blend; they thus profit from the ban on wild harvesting of the herb. This farming model, as well as the double standard regarding harvesting, refer back to an idea that Arabs are a primitive people unfit to own the land, because they did not cultivate or develop it as the settlers did (i.e., did not attempt to recreate a European landscape or European models of agriculture); colonizing and settling the land are cast as justified, and even righteous.

The importance of the ban on foraging goes beyond the economic. Raya Ziada, founder of an acroecology nonprofit based in Ramallah, noted in 2019 that "taking away access to [wild herbs] doesn't just debilitate our economy and compromise what we eat. It's symbolic." Za'tar serves variously as a symbol of Palestinians' connection to the land and to nature; of Israeli colonial dispossession and theft; of the Palestinian home ("It’s a sign of a Palestinian home that has za’tar in it"); and of resistance to the colonial regime, as many Palestinians have continued to forage herbs such as za'tar and akkoub in the decades since the 1977 ban. Resistance to oppression will continue as long as there is oppression.

Palestine Action has called for bail fund donations to aid in their storming, occupying, shutting down, and dismantling of factories and offices owned by Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Also contact your representatives in the USA, UK, and Canada.

Ingredients:

Za'tar (Origanum syriacum), 250g once dried (about 4 cups packed)

250g (1 2/3 cup) sesame seeds

170g (3/4 cup) Levantine sumac berries, or ground sumac (Rhus coriaria)

100g (1/2 cup) wheat berries (optional)

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp aniseed (optional)

1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds (optional)

Levantine wild thyme (also known as Bible hyssop, Syrian oregano, and Lebanese oregano) may be purchased dried online. You may also be able to find some dried at a halal grocery store, where it will be labelled "زعتر" (za'tar) and "thym," "thyme," or "oregano." Check to make sure that what you're buying is just the herb and not the prepared mixture, which is also called "زعتر." Also ensure that what you're buying is not a product of Israel.

If you don't have access to Levantine thyme, Greek or Turkish oregano are good substitutes.

Wheat berries are the wheat kernel that is ground to produce flour. They may be available sold as "wheat berries" at a speciality health foods store. They may be omitted, or replaced with pre-ground whole wheat flour.

Instructions:

1. Harvest wild thyme and remove the stems from the leaves. Wash the leaves in a large bowl of water and pat dry; leave in a single layer in the sun for four days or so, until brittle. Skip this step if using pre-dried herbs.

2. Crumble leaves by rubbing them between the palms of your hands until they are very fine. Pass through a sieve or flour sifter into a large bowl, re-crumbling any leaves that are too coarse to get through.

Crumbling between the hands is an older method. You may also use a blender or food processor to grind the leaves.

3. Mix the sifted thyme with a drizzle of olive oil and work it between your hands until incorporated.

4. Briefly toast sumac berries, caraway seeds, and aniseed in a dry skillet over medium heat, then grind them to a fine powder in a mortar and pestle or a spice mill.

5. Toast sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly, until deeply golden brown.

6. (Optional) In a dry skillet on medium-low, toast wheat berries, stirring constantly, until they are deeply golden brown. Grind to a fine powder in a spice mill. If using ground flour, toast on low, stirring constantly, until browned.

Some people in the Levant bring their wheat to a local mill to be ground after toasting, as it produces a finer and more consistent texture.

7. Mix all ingredients together and work between your hands to incorporate.

Store za'tar in an airtight jar at room temperature. Mix with olive oil and use as a dipping sauce with bread.

#spice blends #Palestinian #Levantine #za’tar

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mariacallous · 2 months ago

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In early September, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a series of sweeping investigations and indictments into Russian information projects aimed at disrupting the 2024 U.S. presidential election. One of these projects, which secretly funded right-wing influencers to promote former President Donald Trump’s campaign, is an escalation from prior Russian information operations, such as their email hacks during the 2016 election.

But another Russian team, described in a planning document published by the Department of Justice, approached disrupting the election a little bit less directly.

The Russian plan describes the “Good Ol’ USA Project” as a “guerrilla media” campaign intended to target “sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.” Written by Ilya Gambashidze, a figure already facing sanctions for his disinformation work aimed at smearing Ukraine, the document suggests focusing influence efforts on the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4Chan,” since they are the “backbone of the right-wing trends” online in the United States.

The inclusion of gamers in this campaign points at emerging dynamics in a global struggle over human rights online—one that policymakers need to pay closer attention to.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group, around 65 percent of Americans—or 212 million people—regularly play video games. Globally, video games generate more than $280 billion in revenue, far larger than traditional culture industries such as film or book publishing. While a trickle of stories about other attempts to push Russian propaganda in video games have attracted some scrutiny from journalists, the question remains: Apart from scale, what is it about gamers that Russia thinks will make them receptive to its messaging?

For starters, video game culture has already become an important venue for extremist right-wing groups to share and normalize their ideas. Far-right groups modify video games to be more explicitly racist and violent than their designers intended. Even gaming spaces designed for children, such as Roblox, which allows players to create their own game worlds and storylines, have attracted thousands of people (many of them young teenagers) to use the game’s freewheeling mechanics to play-act fascist violence.

The prevalence of hate groups has shaped video games into a place where culture and politics are debated, often contentiously, with predictable fault lines emerging along U.S. partisan boundaries. While the industry itself has made considerable progress in improving representation and reducing acts of horrific sexual violence, it has received pushback from far-right figures who are angry at the so-called “wokes” for supposedly “ruining games.”

For a decade, repeated efforts to “reclaim” gaming from an imagined enemy composed of women, Black people, and LGBT+ folks have bubbled up from the darkest corners of the internet, often in places such as Reddit (where this Russian campaign aimed its influence activity). These movements have spilled over into more mainstream political movements that can shape election outcomes. Consider how Gamergate, a 2014 campaign to terrorize women working in the industry into invisibility, metastasized into an online troll army working to get former U.S. President Donald Trump elected in 2016.

These far-right efforts are ongoing, even without Russian help. Last year, a group of gamers who were angry at inclusive representation in games launched a harassment campaign—colloquially called Gamergate 2.0—against a story consulting company.

Earlier this year, when Ubisoft began promoting the latest installment of its popular Assassin’s Creed franchise, this time set in feudal Japan, the trailer prominently featured Yasuke, an African man who served as a samurai in 16th-century Japan. Despite being based on a real historical figure, this movement (egged on by X owner and billionaire Elon Musk) raged at the decision, as if acknowledging Black people in the past was somehow bad. In their quest to sow division within the United States, Russian information operations analysts do not need to look very far to find political allies in gaming communities.

It helps that Russia enjoys greater social legitimacy in gaming than it does in, say, news journalism. You can see this legitimacy reflected in the language gamers that use as they play. Around the same time as Gamergate, a vulgar Russian phrase began popping up in the chats that players use to communicate with each other in non-Russian game streams, primarily in the multiplayer first-person shooter Counterstrike: Global Offensive. The game has around 4 million Russian players, and as it grew in popularity in the mid-2010s, the Russian obscenity cyka blyad became common invective during frustrating moments of play. Its widespread adoption among non-Russian-speaking gamers struck many as odd.

Cyka blyad rose in prominence alongside Russia’s descent into becoming an international pariah, which has limited the spaces where Russian gamers can play games online. In 2014, Russia passed a law requiring websites that store the personal information of Russian citizens to do so on servers inside the country. This was compounded in 2022, when companies ranging from Activision Blizzard to Nintendo protested the invasion of Ukraine by either suspending sales or shutting down Russia-specific services. Despite its residents representing around 10 percent of Counterstrike’s player base, there are no host servers for the game anywhere in Russia.

So, when Russian players log on to find players for a match, they use servers based in Europe or sometimes North America. These servers place them into direct contact with players on the other side of international conflicts—something that many players within the European Union found deeply frustrating after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, as their games became places where people would argue about the annexation.

But another reason why Russian slang began infiltrating non-Russian gaming spaces is that after years of censorship and exclusion from both Russian and Western governments, games are one of the only spaces direct exchanges between ordinary Russian and Western people. Russians lack access to many Western social media platforms—such as Instagram (blocked by the Russian government in 2022, though earlier this year some Russian users regained access)—and were locked out of Western game stores, even as they kept access to many online games. As a result, matches in a game such as Counterstrike or Fortnite became one of the only places where these informal cultural exchanges could take place.

This narrowing of exchange spaces highlights how video games can become useful conduits for propaganda, and it demonstrates that video games are becoming an important, if underappreciated, site for ideological disputes over politics, speech, identity, and expression.

Other countries have begun to use video games for strategic communication. The U.S. government operates semiprofessional esports teams through the Defense Department, whose remit includes convincing young people to become interested in enlistment. China launched a military-produced first-person shooter game to boost recruitment and to humanize the image of the People’s Liberation Army abroad.

The Chinese developers of the hugely popular game Black Myth: Wukong instructed gaming influencers who were given early access to avoid discussing “feminist propaganda” while reviewing the game, apparently to adhere to government censorship rules. And Russian propaganda about the country’s war with Ukraine has begun appearing in games that allow user-generated content, such as Minecraft and the aforementioned Roblox, as the Kremlin seeks to persuade Westerners to end their support for Ukrainian freedom. In response, the U.S. State Department has begun developing its own games intended to train players to resist Russian disinformation.

This isn’t an abstract challenge. Scholars have drawn linkages between Russia’s propaganda efforts and President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as both bots and human agents aggressively pushed narratives about the need to “pacify” an ostensibly violent Ukraine by invading. The invasion was further justified by the myth of Novorossiya, or a pan-Russian identity that views Ukrainians as misguided Russians who need to be forcibly reclaimed.

These efforts to spread propaganda through gaming are rarely successful. Few people wanted to, say, join Hezbollah after the Lebanese militant group launched its own game, Special Force, in 2003. The terrorist group al Qaeda has used video games for recruitment since 2006, but there is little evidence that any meaningful number of people have been recruited because of it. Scholars have fretted for years over the “militarization” of video games as the Pentagon gets more and more involved in the industry, yet U.S. military recruitment is in long-term decline, and public confidence in the nation’s military is at a two-decade low. If games-based propaganda works, we do not yet know where or how it does.

The revelations about Russian video game propaganda hint at some intriguing innovation in how strategic messages might be spread through nontraditional channels, but they also point to the areas where traditional channels for propaganda have closed down. Despite efforts by Republicans in Congress to falsely accuse agencies such as the Global Engagement Center of partisan bias when addressing foreign misinformation, the U.S. government takes the challenge seriously and, as this 2022 report on the propaganda channels , is working to thwart many of Russia’s best efforts to target Americans with propaganda, like when they sanctioned several Russian oligarchs who had been financing US-directed misinformation.

But even beyond government counterprogramming, there are plenty of obstacles to Russia’s efforts within the world of gaming. For example, Ukraine’s video games industry is respected in the United States and Europe. The developer 4A, which was based in Kyiv before the invasion, produces popular games such as the Metro franchise. That company, however, had to fly its employees abroad to keep them safe from the indiscriminate Russian barrages against the Ukrainian capital and other cities. This sent shockwaves through the industry, as it made some of the consequences of the invasion seem more viscerally real even to people who do not follow politics closely.

As a result of American and European sanctions, Russians have a more difficult experience legally purchasing software and services such as online gaming. (Some Russian game companies have since relocated abroad to more neutral countries, such as Cyprus, to continue operating globally). Wargaming, the Belarusian company that makes World of Tanks, also fled to Cyprus, which has become an informal hub of Russian game companies.

Looking forward, there are real questions about what video games are going to become in the information war between Russia and the West. Russian censors have proposed deploying neural networks to search for banned content in games, but it is unclear whether those systems might disrupt gaming for everyone else.

Long before the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow forced Activision to censor the infamous airport sequence in the rerelease of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (in which players assume the role of a Chechen terrorist and can slaughter hundreds of screaming civilians at Sheremetyevo International Airport), and it has not been shy about using government coercion to erase LGBT+ people from gaming (paralleling to its embrace of the U.S. far right). Policymakers should look at ensuring that global communication platforms—and that is what video games are—remain open to free speech and safeguard other basic human rights.

While the latest Russian effort to target games seems to have been thwarted by the U.S. Justice Department, there will undoubtedly be more programs looking to repeat and extend the success of Gamergate in empowering the far right, perhaps this time by enabling it to obstruct effective governance in the United States. The Good Ol’ USA Project also targeted its influence operations toward websites such as Reddit and 4Chan, both of which are as central to the sustainment of far-right movements as gaming. Emerging platforms—which range from popular Chinese games to channels such as the online chat service Discord, which is difficult to monitor at scale and routinely hosts leaks of sensitive military documents—present new opportunities where Russian influence could be targeted.

These strange spaces are the frontier where a global battle for speech is being fought.

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submalevolentgrace · 4 months ago

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for pretty much my entire life we have been locking up refugees in UN-certified human-rights-violating "offshore detention" camps for the heinous crime of daring to try and flee from death and worse, often from wars-on-terror we've helped wage, and have very much done highly decorated war crimes in. we hold them in conditions so bad that war-fleeing refugees have sown their mouths shut, tried to starve themselves, even children trying to kill themselves to escape what we're doing to them. WE are doing. because in my boots on the ground activism days i tried to fight the government on this, and the fact is, the australian public on the whole doesn't give a shit about us torturing refugee kids, half the country is in support of it, so the government gets a free pass no matter which side is in power. from howard to rudd to gillard to rudd to abbott to turnbull to morison to albanese, we lock up and torture refugees. the UN anti-torture inspectors aren't allowed to visit. the camps are run by a private USA prison contractor now.

and it's not like we can't organise a protest! we'll barricade MP's offices because of something an ally-in-law country is doing that we condemn, but when the blood is on our hands we don't wanna know, don't wanna fight, don't wanna admit. and albanese gets up there and says those barricades have "crossed a line", "there's no place for violence like this in our democracy", he says. you know where there is an implicit place for violence, apparently? cops beating indigenous kids to death on camera, the australian people are fine with that apparently. happens all the time. better have a curfew so those kids don't get too rowdy about it!

oh and the CIA agents and US soldiers we welcomed here to supposedly defend us, they rape a bunch of women and children, mostly also indigenous? better get ASIO and the AFP to monitor the population for anti-american sentiment, local cops do it plenty too and we can't stand up to the USA, we're about to go to war with our biggest economic trading partner on their behalf, the troop buildup locations have already been announced! sweep it under the rug little aussies, scrub it from your memory, who cares about raped children anyway? not worth protesting, apparently.

we are right in the middle of the asia-pacific, with loosely speaking about a 5th of the population ethnically or culturally asian, and they are absolutely terrified of speaking out about how many hate crimes they suffer constantly, because the other 80% of the population is more culturally invested in american politics than the fact that labor considers pauline hanson an ally. i don't blame the 20% getting hatecrimed for being scared to speak up, i sure as fuck blame the rest of us for not protecting them, and for doing those hate crimes. "wE'rE a MuLtIcUlTuRaL sOcIeTy!! nO rAcIsM hErE!!", but we'll organise citywide marches in the middle of a pandemic if a black american kid gets killed over there, and then tell blak people they're spelling it wrong.

then we flood the region with our white-bleached propaganda and "culture", to control smaller governments and and lure the people of the region here for our economic benefit; the wealthy as fodder to fund the education complex, and the poor to work below-minimum-wage-slavery "jobs programs" on our great proud aussie battler family run farms.

it's all out in the open. the torture, the murder, the rape, the hate crimes, the technically-it's-legally-distinct-from-slavery, it's all known, all reported regularly on the news, endlessly, cyclically, every few months or years, for my whole life. fuck knows what else we're doing and i don't know about because pine gap prevents it from reaching english language news.

i know the internet zeitgeist really only cares about the single latest trending topic to happen, so you're wondering what that is to make me react enraged and ashamed; but it's everything. i haven't even scratched the surface, just ranting off the top of my head.

every day i carry the shame of what a disgusting violent colony nation this is; to the people who consider themselves australian, to the people here before the nation and their descendants, to the people surrounding us now. i carry the guilt of failure to stop it, and casual complicity of having given up the fight because i couldn't handle it. i think that's what most activists do here, give up in shame, because activists aren't fighting the government - we have one of the most free and open democracies in the world, and the spineless cowards in charge absolutely will do what the populace whims of them - activists here are fighting the cruel and apathetic average australian, who either don't care, or active condone it all. we have the blood of this country on our hands.

so.

what has australia done now?

it's fucken wednesday, mates. nothing new.

#auspol #i consider myself extremely lucky to live in the relative comfort and peace that being a near bottom tier citizen here affords me #and i still fucking hate this country

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justinspoliticalcorner · 3 months ago

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Emma Mae Weber at MMFA:

Right-wing media attacked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, for not owning stocks, bonds, or real estate. While some have celebrated Walz’s portfolio, or lack thereof, some right-wing media figures have drawn absurd conclusions about Walz’s ability to understand the economy or his support of capitalism because of his economic standing.

According to recent financial disclosures, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz doesn’t own stocks or securities. He also does not currently own any real estate. Walz and his wife Gwen Walz sold their most recent home and moved into the governor’s mansion in 2019 when Walz became the governor of Minnesota. Per the disclosures, the only investments Walz holds are his retirement, pension, and life insurance accounts. [The Hill, 8/7/24; The New York Times, 8/9/24]

It’s rare for elected officials not to hold financial assets, and some people are celebrating the modesty of Walz’s portfolio. Walz and his wife also reported no mutual funds, bonds, private equities, book deals, speaking fees, cryptocurrency, or racehorse interests. [Axios, 8/7/24; The Wall Street Journal, 8/12/24]

Most Americans don’t own stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency. A Federal Reserve report on Americans’ economic well-being shows that just 31% of non-retirees in America own “Stocks, bonds, ETFs, or mutual funds held outside a retirement account.” The number only goes up to 35% for all adult Americans. The report also shows that 64% of Americans in 2023 owned a home, and that just 7% of Americans held or used cryptocurrency in 2023. [Federal Reserve, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2023, 5/24]

As a member of Congress in 2011, Walz co-sponsored the STOCK Act in an attempt to combat insider trading. Signed into law in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama, the STOCK Act aimed to prevent lawmakers and congressional staffers from trading on non-public information. While pushing for the legislation, Walz spoke about the importance of “restoring faith” among Americans that their lawmakers are not in office only to enrich themselves. [USA Today, 8/9/24; Twitter/X, 8/7/24]

What will the right-wing media whine about this time in regards to Tim Walz? Having a financial portfolio of an average American, and one that doesn’t have any stock market or bond investments.

#Tim Walz #Stocks #Real Estate #2024 Elections #2024 Presidential Election #Bonds #Finances

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mimi-0007 · 6 months ago

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****†** EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BEFORE YOU VOTE. ****Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of policy proposals to thoroughly reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Established in 2022, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants—whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state"—and to further the objectives of the next Republican president. It adopts a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory—which asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration. Unitary executive theory is a disputed interpretation of Article II of the Constitution of the United States. Project 2025 envisions widespread changes across the entire government, particularly with regard to economic and social policies and the role of the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes slashing funding for the Department of Justice (DOJ), dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), sharply reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor of fossil fuel production, eliminating the Department of Commerce, and ending the independence of various federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts, though its writers disagree on the wisdom of protectionism. .

Project 2025 recommends abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other government agencies, or terminated. Scientific research would receive federal funding only if it suits conservative principles. The Project urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care and to restrict access to contraception. The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank that leads the development of Project 2025, asserted in April 2024 that "the radical Left hates families" and "wants to eliminate the family and replace it with the state" while driving the country to emulate totalitarian nations, such as North Korea. The Project seeks to infuse the government with elements of Christianity, stating in its Mandate that "freedom is defined by God, not man." Project 2025 proposes criminalizing pornography, removing protections against discrimination based on sexual or gender identity, and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, as well as affirmative action. The Project advises the future president to immediately deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and to direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump's adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. It recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants across the country. It promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of such sentences. Project director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, explained that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state." Dans admitted that it was "counterintuitive" to recruit so many people to join the government in order to shrink it, but pointed out the need for a future President to "regain control" of the federal government. Although the project does not promote a specific presidential candidate, many contributors have close ties to Donald Trump and his presidential campaign. The Heritage Foundation has developed Project 2025 in collaboration with over 100 partners including Turning Point USA, led by its executive director Charlie Kirk; the Conservative Partnership Institute including former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as senior partner; the Center for Renewing America, led by former Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought; and America First Legal, led by former Trump Senior Advisor Stephen Miller. The Project is detailed in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, a version of which Heritage has written as transition plans for each prospective Republican president since 1980. Critics of Project 2025 have described it as an authoritarian Christian nationalist movement and a path for the United States to become an autocracy. Several experts in law have indicated that it would undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers. Some conservatives and Republicans also criticized the plan, for example in the contexts of centralizing power, climate change, and foreign trade.

#black tumblr #black literature #black community #black americans #civil rights #mexican american #asian american #black colleges #black lives matter #project 2025 #americans

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juliancallos · 2 years ago

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“Delicate Balance” Acrylic and acrylic gouache on BFK Rives mounted on cradled wood panel 6″ x 12″ x 1.5″

“Existential” opens tonight, 6–9pm, and spans both Antler Gallery and Talon Gallery in Portland. The show, curated by Thinkspace and Antler/Talon, will feature over 100 works by over 70 amazing artists; 10% of all sales will be donated to Born Free USA to help raise awareness and funds for our world’s endangered species.

My piece is inspired by glass frogs. More than half of glass frog species assessed by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are threatened with extinction and all are vulnerable to habitat loss, pollution, climate change, invasive species, chytrid fungus, and the international pet trade.

The Mashpi glass frog, the species I referenced for my piece, was discovered in Ecuador just last year and was recommended by researchers to be listed as endangered according to IUCN guidelines.

The painting also features a Mashpi orchid and a monkey grasshopper. 🌸🦗

If you’re in the area I hope you’ll check out the show. It’s sure to be a good one!

#Antler Gallery #Talon Gallery #Thinkspace #Born Free USA #gallery show #painting #sketch #glass frog

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lunarian-anarchist · 14 days ago

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Resource Masterpost

This post will contain links to websites or links to other posts that will either help you or someone you know. I will be updating this periodically. Please inform me of any broken links, issues with aid organizations etc via messaging me. Feel free to add on.

LGBT resources:

DIY HRT

The Trevor Project

Get a Passport

Hotlines that won't sic the cops on you

Safe states updated to check sundown towns

Bodily Autonomy and abortion:

A list of doctors that will sterilize you without a fight

Ways to be prepared

Support Planned Parenthood

Mutual Aid/ACAB/Organizing:

This post contains a multitude of links and resources for racial justice and protecting yourself from the police state.

This post contains links to support Indigenous people's businesses.

Small Town Organizing for Anarchists

Street Support

Labor:

This post contains resources for Women looking to go into trade work.

Charities for various countries. Note that many of these charities are global or provide relief to multiple areas.

Palestine:

Palestinian Children's Relief Fund

Alliance for Middle East Peace

World Central Kitchen

UN Crisis Fund

United Palestinian Appeal

Sudan:

Sudan Relief Fund

Sudanese American Physician Association

Sadagaat

Islamic Relief Fund

Khartoum Aid Kitchen

Democratic Republic of Congo:

Congo Initiative

Goma Actif

Doctors without Borders

Lebanon:

World Food Program USA

Helping Hand

Save the Children

Ukraine:

United Help Ukraine

Americares

Nova Ukraine

Other resources:

Post with various links for personal use (some links are broken)

A BUNCH of free books! (Original post was deleted and some links may be broken)

Search engines

Long list for Artists

#resource list #lgbt #abortion #ACAB #palestine #lebanon #sudan #ukraine #congo #resources

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tomorrowusa · 5 months ago

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Russia started its unprovoked full scale invasion of Ukraine 864 days ago. Putin knows he cannot win the war but he continues it despite enormous losses of Russian military personnel and equipment. And he certainly hasn't done anything for Russia's reputation as a competent military power.

If these sorts of losses don't do anything to make Russia change course, it's time to seize Russian assets and use them to defend and rebuild Ukraine. But there's some reluctance to do so in some countries.

The biggest slice of the pie is Russian state assets (reserves of the Russian Central Bank, Russia’s central financial institution) – approximately $300 billion. They’ve been frozen in banking institutions across the G7 countries. So why are these assets parked there in the first place? At the time of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia kept some assets in money and securities abroad in reliable banks, scooping up foreign currency. The lion’s share of these assets, €192 billion, is held in Euroclear, a financial institution headquartered in Brussels specializing in the safekeeping and settlement of securities. The rest of the assets’ exact size and location are a bit of a mystery since that information is classified, but it’s a safe bet that a hefty chunk is in the USA.

The USA, you say? Now that the US Supreme Court has given presidents immunity, Biden should just scoop up all that Russian loot and put it into an account which Ukraine could draw from for its national security and reconstruction. 😉

Our G7 partners are a bit more skittish about seizing Russian assets. This is what happens when certain countries become too dependent on Russian fossil fuels and other trade with Russia.

One big step forward to the confiscation of these funds was the US passing the REPO (Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians) Act on 23 April 2024. While successfully implementing it depends on further actions and certifications, the REPO Act lays out a legal mechanism for asset confiscation, gives the President the power to start the confiscation process, and allows for coordination with G7 countries, the EU, and other partners. It could potentially give Ukraine access to several billions of Russian sovereign assets located in the US. However, the G7 did not follow the US’s lead. Instead, on 3 May 2024, the Financial Times reported that the G7 was no longer considering a full confiscation of frozen Russian assets for Ukraine, with an official saying that these assets could be used as leverage in potential peace negotiations with Russia. This stance fails to recognize Russia’s true objectives and the pointlessness of using these assets as a bargaining chip, given Russia’s continued escalation of aggression and substantial revenues from fossil fuel exports.

On a slightly different note, the change in government in the UK will make no difference regarding support for Ukraine. It's one area where Labour and the Conservatives see eye to eye. Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited President Zelenskyy in Kyiv last year.

Sir Keir spoke with President Zelenskyy on Friday – his first day in office.

Zelenskyy had a conversation with the new British Prime Minister: an unprecedented agreement was discussed

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falseobject · 8 months ago

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As of last week, the BDS movement is now calling for boycotts of Intel. Posting here because I haven't seen anyone posting about it.

Source: https://bdsmovement.net/Apartheid-Chips-BoycottIntel

[Image ID:

Screenshots of the BDS movement website's blog. The title is "Apartheid Chips - #BoycottIntel". Tagline: "No tech for apartheid, no tech for genocide!" The image features ruined buildings in Gaza on the left, and pro-Palestine protestors holding signs like "No tech for genocide" on the right.

Text in image 1:

"Despite Israel’s livestreamed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the nosediving international investment and confidence in its hi-tech sector (investment in 2023 down by 74%), Intel (INTC) has announced plans to build a $25 billion chipmaking factory in Israel, expanding its already large factory. Intel has also committed to buying $16.6 billion worth of goods and services from Israeli suppliers over the next decade. The new plant is due to open in 2028 and operate through 2035."

Text in image 2:

"TAKE ACTION NOW:

BOYCOTT PCs and other computing devices with Intel chips

Urge your state, city, church, trade union, university, investment fund, or pension fund to DIVEST from Intel and, where applicable, exclude Intel from contracts

PROTEST Intel’s genocidal investment directly to its board of directors by using this email action tool

ORGANIZE a peaceful demonstration disrupting business as usual at an Intel location in your state (USA) or in your country (global)

View our full FACT SHEET with more research and context

If you are a member of an organization that would like to be part of our evolving global #BoycottIntel campaign, fill out the linked form."

End ID.]

#palestine #free palestine #bds movement #gaza #boycottintel

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fabuloustripodfish · 5 months ago

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Breaking news!!! (In KR)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 대원씨아이 코믹스 인스타그램 (@daewon_comics_news)

instagram

In South Korea, Trigun-N.ver will be published! In South Korea, Trimax manga is published in very small quantities, so before this news announced, it was circulating on second-hand trading sites for a loooong time. For me, who waiting trimax manga physical version, this announcement really makes me happy!!!

But, I'm not sure whether this Trimax is only released through crowd-funding (from this insta post⬇️, publisher Daewon(who re-publised trimax manga kr. Ver) said they will progress crowd-funding related trimax)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 대원씨아이 코믹스 인스타그램 (@daewon_comics_news)

instagram

Anyways... With the boom of Tristamp, I'm so excited that People who wants to re-release of Trimax increased, and As a result, Trimax delux edition(at USA), and Trigun-N(at KR) will be re-relased.

When another notice about it announced, I'll let you know as soon as possible!

(Soooooo..... Will Tristamp be dubbed in Korean version...?)

(스탬 더빙판...내줘야겠지...?)

#trimax #trigun #tristar #trigun maximum #trigun manga #Instagram

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dailyanarchistposts · 4 months ago

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J.5.5 What forms of co-operative credit do anarchists support?

Anarchists tend to support must forms of co-operation, including those associated with credit and money. This co-operative banking takes many forms, such as credit unions, LETS schemes and so on. In this section we discuss two main forms of co-operative credit, mutualism and

LETS.

Mutualism is the name for the ideas associated with Proudhon and his Bank of the People. Essentially, it is a confederation of credit unions in which working class people pool their funds and savings so allowing credit to be supplied at cost (no interest), so increasing the options available to them. LETS stands for Local Exchange Trading Schemes and is a similar idea in many ways (see Bringing the Economy Home from the Market by Ross V.G. Dobson on LETS). From its start in Canada, LETS has spread across the world and there are now hundreds of schemes involving hundreds of thousands of people.

Both schemes revolve around creating an alternative form of currency and credit within capitalism in order to allow working class people to work outwith the capitalist money system by creating a new circulating medium. In this way, it is hoped, workers would be able to improve their living and working conditions by having a source of community-based (very low interest) credit and so be less dependent on capitalists and the capitalist banking system. Supporters of mutualism considered it as the ideal way of reforming capitalism away for by making credit available to the ordinary worker at very cheap rates, the end of wage slavery could occur as workers would work for themselves by either purchasing the necessary tools required for their work or by buying the capitalists out.

Mutual credit, in short, is a form of credit co-operation, in which individuals pull their resources together in order to benefit themselves as individuals and as part of a community. It has the following key aspects:

Co-operation: No-one owns the network. It is controlled by its members democratically.

Non-exploitative: No interest is charged on account balances or credit. At most administrative costs are charged, a result of it being commonly owned and managed.

Consent: Nothing happens without it, there is no compulsion to trade.

Labour-Notes: They use their own type of money as a means of aiding “honest exchange.”

It is hoped, by organising credit, working class people will be able to work for themselves and slowly but surely replace capitalism with a co-operative system based upon self-management. While LETS schemes do not have such grand schemes, historically mutualism aimed at working within and transforming capitalism to socialism. At the very least, LETS schemes reduce the power and influence of banks and finance capital within society as mutualism ensures that working people have a viable alternative to such parasites.

These ideas have had a long history within the socialist movement, originating in Britain in the early 19th century when Robert Owen and other Socialists raised the idea of labour notes and labour-exchanges as both a means of improving working class conditions within capitalism and of reforming capitalism into a society of confederated, self-governing communities. Such “Equitable Labour Exchanges” were “founded at London and Birmingham in 1832” with “Labour notes and the exchange of small products.” [E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, p. 870] Apparently independently of these attempts in Britain at what would later be called mutualism, Proudhon arrived at the same ideas decades later in France: “The People’s Bank quite simply embodies the financial and economic aspects of the principle of modern democracy, that is, the sovereignty of the People, and of the republican motto, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’” [Selected Writings of P-J Proudhon, p. 75] Similarly, in the USA (partly as a result of Joshua Warren’s activities, who got the idea from Robert Owen) there was extensive discussion on labour notes, exchanges and free credit as a means of protecting workers from the evils of capitalism and ensuring their independence and freedom from wage slavery. When Proudhon’s works appeared in North America, the basic arguments were well known and they were quickly adopted by radicals there.

Therefore the idea that mutual banking using labour money as a means to improve working class living conditions, even, perhaps, to achieve industrial democracy, self-management and the end of capitalism has a long history in Socialist thought. Unfortunately this aspect of socialism became less important with the rise of Marxism (which called these early socialists “utopian”). Attempts at such credit unions and alternative exchange schemes were generally replaced with attempts to build working class political parties and so constructive socialistic experiments and collective working class self-help was replaced by working within the capitalist state. Fortunately, history has had the last laugh on Marxism with working class people yet again creating anew the ideas of mutualism (as can be seen by the growth of LETS and other schemes of community money).

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