#internal colonization

[emptyanddark]

...contemporary colonial projects tend toward the “operational enclosure,” which describes a digitally-mediated social hierarchy in which the movement and behaviour of certain racialized populations are made automatically detectable and thus controllable, while privileged settler populations are permitted to move around in a relatively frictionless way. [...] this form of enclosure is being adapted by government agencies and corporations across the Global South to slot marginalized populations into the operative logics of actionable intelligence. For privileged settlers, a seamless digitally integrated society brings them pride in the advancement of their country’s capabilities along with consumer convenience. For Muslims, on the other hand, the operational enclosure provokes intense fear."

"...advanced dataveillance technology is key in producing an efficient settler colonial state that can classify and segment its inhabitants. Two interrelated phenomena are at play here, one regarding the technology itself and the other about how it molds social reality. First, the technology is a black box—security workers do not really understand how it works beyond the reductive readouts they see on their screen: 99.11 percent match. Orange tag. Potentially “untrustworthy.” Second, in practice these simplistic characterizations and predictions come to be seen as truth. The technology is viewed as an unquestioned authoritative good, since it is perceived as scientific and state-of-the-art intelligence. The predictions made become legally enforced truths. Together, these two elements, the digital black box and the legal and social discourse of technological intelligence, are producing one of the first mass experiments in the colonial operational enclosure.

A more nuanced view of contemporary colonialisms attempts to show how these different forms of imperialism are entangled with each other and how they need to be opposed simultaneously.

[hussyknee]

This ruling is non-binding (not sure how it would be enforced even if it was considering Israel's chief protector is the U.S., which doesn't recognise the International Criminal Court and keeps trying to punish it for this kind of thing), but there's support for it across the board except from the US and its new vassal state, the UK. The Tory government has backed the US in ignoring every ICJ ruling on Palestine thus far and Starmer has been avoiding the issue but reinstated funding for UNRWA a few hours after the latest one. Starmer is a spineless Zionist maggot and as much of a US shill has the Tories however, so which way his government tips will probably depends on the strength of the US's reaction.

If you still want to vote for that death-worshipping lurching corpse in November and maybe claim back some of the voters who've decided they can't endorse this bloodthirsty maniac, now is the time to take to the streets and threaten to withhold your vote unless he fucking complies. Don't worry, the same amount of you will vote for him anyway since genocide is not a red line for you, but the DNC is jumpy enough now that they might want to err on the side of caution. Please try and stop your precious democracy from massacring any more children, even if only to save your own skins.

[violottie]

🇵🇸 IMPORTANT ICJ UPDATE🇵🇸

This starts today, 19th February 2024 and continues until Next Monday 26th February 2024. See times below, they will all be streamed everyday live here or here on Al Jazeera Live

"The International Court of Justice in The Hague will hear from 52 countries and three organisations on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem since 1967.⁠" from Al Jazeera English, 19/Feb/2024:

[reverentwormpriest]

jet and zuko toxic yaoi is so real idk how i never saw it . when the hot buzzcut burn scar badboy with a past he doesnt talk about wont join your emo band and youre really upset but its all good cuz you saw his uncle firebending so you just decide to go fucking kill him instead

[pussydemolisher900]

[canisalbus]

For how much Machete is described by others as off-putting, he really is a beautiful dog. Does Vasco ever tell him so? That his eyes make him look earnest, his fur the most comforting shade of white like cream, the way his ears catch light like stained glass? If someone doesn't tell him so, he'd forever think he was ugliest duckling

I think Vasco definitely tries, sincerely and often, but Machete is very reluctant to accept compliments and positive feedback. Especially if it's about something as personal and innate as his looks.

[quixoticanarchy]

Ok I read a book on degrowth by jason hickel (Less is More) and I still need to read more but. preliminary thoughts:

I appreciate the quantification of by how much current resource and energy consumption overshoots sustainable limits, and the excoriation of the absurd demand for compound growth on a finite planet; and the book has a decent history of capitalism and the violence and dispossession it rests upon. There is some similar quantification for how proposed degrowth measures would affect resource consumption, though (understandably) piecemeal, so it’s unclear what the full impact of these measures would be vis-à-vis climate meltdown and ecological tipping points, or on what timeline the degrowth transition would have to occur.

Degrowth measures - resource use caps, a shorter work week, basic income, healthcare, income caps, re-localizing supply chains, killing planned obsolescence, moving to a shared rather than personal ownership model for things like vehicles, etc. - are broadly “good” and have been promoted and supported outside of a specifically degrowth context already, which speaks to their appeal but also their pitfalls. Implementing all these measures and more has to carry the explicit intention of improving human and ecological welfare, GDP be damned, and has to be tied explicitly to a commitment to reducing growth and capping profits; otherwise, the trap I see is attempting to enact some of these measures while keeping the capitalist edifice intact - which, as Hickel acknowledges, would spur a new ‘fix’ in which some other domain or market is forced open for exploitation so that growth can continue.

This is obviously at odds with degrowth and it isn’t anything degrowth advocates don’t know, but it seems naïve to envision states whose existence and operation are so inextricable from capitalism being capable of doing such reforms to the degree and with the ideological shift necessary. It would be suicide. Which I’d welcome, but just saying we need to tackle corruption and have more real democracy so that governments can serve people’s actual needs does not convince me that these policies could be sincerely and radically adopted by any state that exists today.

The book seems to walk a line between “degrowth is very radical since it would require ditching the demand for economic growth and probably most of the profit motive itself, which is a huge mindset and ideological shift - if not to socialism per se then to post-capitalism” and also “degrowth isn’t that radical/outlandish since what it takes is all these commonsense reforms that people already want anyway”. Sometimes the degrowth policy package sounds a lot like just welfare-state capitalism, except with resource and energy consumption dramatically scaled back, and without the economic growth imperative. So… no longer capitalism as such, but still using many of the master’s tools to retrofit the master’s house.

In principle, a world exists in which wealthy countries consume far less and the rest of the world is freer and not (or at least less) exploited. In principle, degrowth measures could help us realize that world. Saying it’s not a revolutionary process might keep some readers from being scared off, etc, but I’m left wondering then: where does the force come from to make these changes happen? Are wealthy countries and individuals and corporations going to just agree to resource caps and wealth caps and redistribution? The argument that degrowth is a kind of decolonization and requires the demise of the colonial and capitalist view of people and nature is compelling to me, but that seems to conflict with the idea that degrowth can be implemented as a set of reforms to the systems that exist now, without the messiness of revolution and without somehow being co-opted by capitalism or packaged as ‘green growth’ (which Hickel makes clear would be bad and is bullshit). The ideological shift and end to growth is the big ask here - without that, the reforms are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, or maybe on the lawn of the master’s house, if you will.

[nonasbirthday]

"why is there only 1 RB per planet. why dorsn't the moon get an RB. what even is a soul" are all good questions and i have another!

if john killing the planets produced the resurrection beasts, if the reason he killed the planets was to get a thanergy boost from their deaths, and a thing must have a soul for it to be killed, does this mean the fucking sun has a soul?

ugh you know before nona came out i was semi-convinced that alecto was actually the RB of the sun. which doesn't really make sense bc how could there be life on the sun. but john said he reignited the sun, and that he continued to power it, and his eyes kind of look like an eclipse, you get it. so YEAH i'm with you here, if john actually resurrected the sun then it seems like it's gotta have a soul right?!! IF john is telling the truth, which seems to be a big if, because in HTN right as we believe john's death is causing the sun to collapse he suddenly re-forms and tells augustine that he can't actually be killed by the RBs or by mercymorn, so no need to worry about Dominicus after all, except how it may have toasted the sixth a little bit there, whoopsie! BUT then in NTN john does say he "bit through the sun first" so like!! what is the deal!!

[hussyknee]

(alt included)

Link to article

Senator Shaheen has to date been paid $572,575 by AIPAC.

Norway, Sweden and Denmark divested from Elbit Systems for selling surveillance systems and weapons for Israel's illegal occupation of West Bank, Denmark outright blacklisting it, HSBC divested when it started manufacturing cluster bombs for Israel that resulted in mass-scale destruction of towns and villages in Lebanon. It also manufactures white phosphorus. It sells spyware not just for Israeli surveillance over its Occupied Territories, but also the US patrol of the Mexican border and the European Union's border control in the Mediterranean to arrest and deport North African refugees. The same systems were discovered to be targeting Ethiopian journalists all over the world.

But apparently throwing paint on its walls and protesting it helping genocide people is "antisemitic".

[1ore]

it wasn't enough that arizona's japanese internment camps were placed on gila river indian community and colorado river indian tribes' land as "reservations within reservations" (and against the desires of GRIC.) now i get to learn that chinese and japanese immigrants evaded the chinese exclusion act by traveling first to mexico and then to the u.s., entering through o'odham land, through the late 1800s own flavor of "prevention through deterrence," while the u.s. used what is by all rights a diverse and abundant desert to kill them, just as they do latine migrants today. and now i feel like i have to tell everyone i know about this because nobody told me. our fates as illegal immigrants are so tightly bound up i want to scream.

from Peoples of a Sonoran Desert Oasis by Jared Orsi

[historyforfuture]

To Remember and never be cheated

👿👺A thief never becomes an owner ✌🏼🇵🇸.

It is just a matter of time 🕒 🇵🇸✌🏼.

[rollercoasterwords]

hello! i was just thinking abt thtf (as one does) and i remembered your focus on colonization when dorcas talked abt her heritage and how in ur notes u mentioned that it was something to do with your major or something u were learning about? sorry if i got that wrong it’s been a while since i read it, but that just seems soooo interesting to me and i love the way u write it!! so i was just wondering what ur major is/was? if thats something you’d be willing to share <3 xxx

yeah sure! i studied international studies & history as an undergrad & that’s what my bachelor’s degree is in; my area focus was latin america which is where a lot of the postcolonial stuff was coming from—not sure what it’s like elsewhere but in the u.s. if ur studying like. asia, latin america, or africa in history/i.s. depts learning abt colonization is pretty unavoidable for obvious reasons. my impression is that there is perhaps less of a chance of encountering colonial/postcolonial perspectives if ur focusing on u.s. or european history, but it kinda depends on what ur studying…there’s definitely a bit of a split in more “traditional” veins of scholarship (wwii, medieval history, ancient greece & rome, western civ, etc) vs “area studies” where scholars have kinda fought to recognize the full scope & impact of colonization, which is then slowly incorporated more into “traditional” areas of study—like studying u.s. & european history should, realistically, entail at least some study of colonial histories, but universities tend to be pretty conservative lol & history & poli sci (of which i.s. is a subset) are particularly notorious for hanging onto their notions of traditionalism.

anyway. i’m now in grad school for gender studies broadly but most of the work i do currently is pretty historical & if i do go on to do a phd it’ll likely be in history—i ended up moving away from i.s. bc there was just too much about the field that i disliked & even tho history definitely comes w its own set of problems it ended up being a better fit for me. if ur interested in learning more abt colonialism, postcolonial studies, anti-imperialism, etc then there’s a broad variety of fields u could look into—history, anthropology, international studies, etc. it has less to do with the field & more to do w the specific scholars/professors in that field; i also would definitely not overlook departments like africana studies, gender studies, latin american studies, etc. many universities in the u.s. have these smaller “area studies” depts. that sometimes only offer minors & are made up solely of professors who are cross-listed w other depts, but they tend to be much more interdisciplinary & often have the kind of people doing work that focuses on the impact of colonization etc in their area of research. like the queer theory course i took as an undergrad introduced me to a lot more anti-imperialist writing than like my intro international studies class lmao

[readingsquotes]

"This blog post is from August 25, 2016, authored by Edith Garwood, Amnesty International USA Country Specialist covering Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the State of Palestine.

When the U.S. Department of Justice published a report August 10, 2016, that documented “widespread constitutional violations, discriminatory enforcement, and culture of retaliation” within the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), there was rightly a general reaction of outrage.

But what hasn’t received as much attention is where Baltimore police received training on crowd control, use of force and surveillance: Israel’s national police, military and intelligence services.

Baltimore law enforcement officials, along with hundreds of others from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state, as well as the DC Capitol police have all traveled to Israel for training. Thousands of others have received training from Israeli officials here in the U.S..

Many of these trips are taxpayer funded while others are privately funded. Since 2002, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have paid for police chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains to train in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

These trainings put Baltimore police and other U.S. law enforcement employees in the hands of military, security and police systems that have racked up documented human rights violations for years. Amnesty International, other human rights organizations and even the U.S. Department of State have cited Israeli police for carrying out extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, using ill treatment and torture (even against children), suppression of freedom of expression/association including through government surveillance, and excessive use of force against peaceful protesters."

[sskk-manifesto]

Atsushi's back in the game!!! ۶( ˆ o ˆ )

[claraameliapond]

Sari Bashi, Jewish Israeli American on the reality of apartheid in Palestine

[news4dzhozhar]